







■^< 



^^0^ _ 






t^o^ . " ^liK : ^ ^ 



















V 



9> 





A BRIEF VIEW 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 



UP TO THE 



AGE OF PERICLES 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA AND BLANCHARD. 

1846. 







/9 d 



^ Vfc 



% 



k 



48 65 55 

AUG -6 1942 



PHILADELPHIA : 

T, K. AND P. G. COLLINS, 

FEIHTERS. 



/ ;/ 



INTRODUCTION. 

Nearly three years ago a small volume crept into 
print entitled " Philosophical Theories and Philoso- 
phical Experience by a Pariah." It purported to be, 
and was, the result of deep communings with unseen 
things which suffering had produced in one who be- 
lieved in a God, and as a consequence of that faith 
believed that in whatever he permitted even, there 
must be latent good ; and, therefore, resolved to seek, 
and hoped to find it. At that time two only were 
privy to the publication ; the Thinker, and the Friend 
who edited those thoughts because they were his own 
also ; and who, possessing the sinews of — printing — 
determined that they should no longer form the mere 
private solace of one or two. 

An unexpected success attended the experiment : 
the philosophy propounded was approved ; its appli- 
cability to all the great purposes of life was acknow- 
ledged ; and, very shortly after, a society was formed 
for the purpose of editing more works of the same 
kind; in which sound views of science, and great 
philosophical principles should be clearly and shortly 
brought forward, for the benefit of those who had 
neither time nor inclination to seek them in more volu- 
minous works. Since that time three more tracts have 
l|een ushered into the world under the auspices of this 
society : — the Theories have gained publicity in the 
lecture room of the Royal Institution, and have found 
favor in the sight both of philosophers and divines. 
Physiologists of no mean fame have listened and 
praised; and among those whom our age looks up 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

to as great in science, many have bestowed so liberal 
a share of commendation as to outgo the most san- 
guine hopes of the friends who first associated them- 
selves for a purpose which they thought a good one, 
but of whose success they were uncertain. 

This state of things has put an end to the dual 
existence of the Pariah, and the Theorist is now but 
one among many pledged to contribute to the com- 
mon stock: and he knows not how he can do so 
better than by presenting as his quota, a short view 
of a subject which has hitherto slumbered in pon- 
derous folios and quartos, or in fearful ranges of oc- 
tavo volumes clad in one livery, which put a man's 
reading courage to the test, and justify him in call- 
ing himself bold, who takes down the first volume. 
Horace's warning of the danger that whilst avoiding 
the Scylla, lengthiness, we may full into the Charyb- 
dis, obscurity, will doubtless occur to the imgentle 
reader, for times have changed' since worthy au- 
thors addressed their intended victims as gentle^ — 
the Theorist can only answer to the thought, that he 
hopes to steer his barque safely between the two. If, 
furthermore, any of these ungentle personages should 
wonder why so old a subject as Greek philosophy 
should be brought forward; he answers, that though 
we owe the chief of our scientific acquirements to 
the spirit of inquiry which the literature of Greece 
awoke, when Europe was slumbering in contented 
darkness ; few are aware of how much that literature 
has done for us : and he wishes to lead his country- 
men, and countrywomen too, to do it more justice;^ 
The simple monk who complained of the Greek 
tongue, and especially of " the book called the New 
Testament," in that language, as a "pestilent inven- 
tion;" — and the military despot who forbade it to be 
taught in his schools, knew it better than we do : they 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

feared it; for it is the language of the free man, 
whose mind brooks shackles as ill as his body. We 
who have drunk at its pure fountain go on our way 
refreshed, but ungratefully forget whence we obtained 
the invigorating draught ; and too often imagine that 
we exalt Christianity by detracting from the merits 
of the great men of antiquity, "who having not the 
law, were a law unto themselves;" and who, if the 
sun of the Gospel had not yet risen upon the earth, 
at least pointed to its dawning. Clement of Alexan- 
driaf whom we must allow to have been a competent 
judge of such matters, explicitly says, "Philosophy 
was needful to the Greeks before the coming of the 
Lord, for the purifying of their lives,* and even now 
it is useful to piety ; being a kind of rudimentary 
teaching for those who upon conviction receive the 
faith." " For," he adds a little further on, "philoso- 
phy to the Greeks, was what the law was to the He- 
brews, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ."! 

It is strange that with such testimony before us, 
and with many of the works of that age in our hands 
also, we should have been so generally led astray by 
a misunderstood passage or two in the epistles of 
St. Paul, where he is referring to sophists, and not 
to philosophers; and no less grievous is it, than 
strange ; for such misunderstandings make the first 
steps in ancient lore a dangerous trial. It is a fearful 
moment when we discover that any part of what we 
have been taught in our childhood by those we most 
venerate, is not true: — the very foundation of our 
best hopes is shaken, and it is well if in that frightful 
wrench of our reason from our affections, we remain 
calm enough to examine how much we must forego, 

t Clem. Alex. Strom., lib. i. c. 5. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

how much retain. Could we know the private his- 
tory of most "free-thinkers," as they termed them- 
selves, — "infidels," as they have been termed by 
others, — we should most probably find that the 
greater number,— as we know has been the case 
with many, — were made what they were by some 
such revulsion of feeling as that above described. 
It is time then that the possibility of any such lament- 
able results should be prevented, by putting into the 
hands of all, the means of knowing, and consequently 
of teaching, the unadulterated Truth. The child 
might thus receive from his mother in his infancy, 
the rudiments of the knowledge which his after pro- 
gress must be grounded upon; and thus the best 
years of his life would not be wasted in wwlearning, 
when that process is most dangerous, and when there 
is much hazard that, along with the prejudices of the 
nursery, the great truths of religion and morality may 
also be discarded. Science, divine and human, would 
then stand before him in loving companionship : and 
what advance Avould be too great for one whose na- 
ture was indeed become what Plato had dreamed 
long ago ; — a blessed harmony of the seen and the 
unseen, the intellectual and the corporeal. The age 
of pious frauds and political humbug is passing away : 
men, and women too, are beginning to be weary of 
receiving dogmata upon trust: and if there be, as 
assuredly there is in this age, much of crude and 
wild theory, and of contempt for what had before 
been held in honor, let us at least impute it to its 
right cause, and meet the evil with its proper remedy. 
The human soul asks for the Truth: let us give 
it; — for surely that God who made man for himself, 
and who is Truth, has made that the road to peace 
and to happiness. 

It may be needful here to premise that in order to 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

compress matter that usually has filled large volumes 
into so small a space, it has been requisite to omit 
all the arguments by which the writer has been in- 
fluenced to choose one account rather than another, 
where there were conflicting statements. It is the 
business of an author who writes a compendium of 
this kind, to exert his own best judgment in the 
choice of his materials, in order to give the reader a 
clear notion of the subject he has undertaken to ex- 
plain ; not to weary him by contrasting the discre- 
pancies between ancient authors, and by detailing 
the reasons why one witness is more credible than 
another. In many instances the choice of testimony 
must be founded on a deep study of human nature 
generally; a subject too large to be here discussed: 
the writer, therefore, can do no more than ask his 
reader to have candor enough to believe that he has 
left no author unexplored that could throw light upon 
the subject. The results of his reading, his expe- 
rience in the world, and his contemplations in soli- 
tude, are here given, and he conscientiously believes 
in their general truth; but his judgment, like that 
of others, is fallible ; and those who have the time, 
will always do well to examine and judge for them- 
selves. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

1800 



1550 



1500 



1400 



1250 

1225 
1215 
1194- 
1184 
1180 



1100 



About this time the Israelitish family settle in Eg^'^pt, 
and Greece is peopled by a tribe from Asia, called 
by the ancient writers, Pelasgi. Argos and Sicyon 
were the first kingdoms, known as such, in the 
region thus colonized. The ancient walls and 
monuments, called Cyclopean, being found where 
the Pelasgi are said to have settled", were probably 
their work. Another , tribe, the Hellenes, though 
the weaker of the two at first, gradually gain the 
supremacy. They first appear in Phocis, and 
about Parnassus, under their king Deucalion, 
spread into Thessaly, and drive oat the Pelasgi. 
The Hellenes consisted of four tribes, ^olians, 
lonians, Dorians, and Achaians. 
The Israelites leave Egypt. 
Cecrops leads a colony from Sais in Egypt, to 
Attica; and Cadmus from Phoenicia to Breotia. 

Danaus arrives in Argos from Egypt, and persuades 
the people to depose their monarch, and receive 
him in his room. 

Rameses the Great, or Sesostris, pursues his 
conquests. 

Pelops comes from Mysia to Argos. 

Minos reigns in Crete, and clears the sea of 
pirates. 

The Argonautic voyage to Colchis. Orpheus flourish- 
ed about this time. 

The seven chiefs besiege Thebes; but it is only taken 
by their sons in a second attempt. 

> Trojan war. 

The descendants of Hercules endeavor to recover 
their father's kingdom by the aid of the Dorians 
and .'Etolians: but the first attempt under Hyllus, 
the son of Hercules, fails. The grandsons of Hyllus, 
Telephus, and Cresphontes, with Eurysthenes and 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 11 

Procles (the sons of the third brother Aristodemus) 
succeed in their enterprise. During this time the 
JGtolians plant colonies, about 1124 b. con the coast 
of Mysia and Caria, and in the island of Lesbos. 

By the successful invasion of the Heraclidge, 
Argos, Sparta, Messenia, and Corinth, became 
Doric; the Achaians being driven out. Elis fell 
to the ^Etolians, the allies of the Dorians. The 
Achaians fell back on the lonians, and settled 
themselves in the part afterwards called Achaia. 
The lonians were received by the Athenians, who 
were of the same race. 

Sparta during the time it was peopled by the 
Achaians, was first governed by the princes of the 
house of Perseus; and then, in consequence of 
marriage, by Menelaus, of the house of Pelops : 
but under the Dorians it fell to the lot of Procles 
and Eurysthenes, whose descendants continued to 
share the sovereign power; a king being chosen 
from each family. Agis was the son and successor 
of Eurysthenes, and the two families were hence 
called Proclidae and Agidae. The distinction be- 
tween Lacedemonians and Spartans took its rise 
probably from this conquest: the former were the 
Achaian cultivators, the latter the Dorian victors. 
The Israelites ask a king, and Saul is chosen. 

Codrus saves Athens by his voluntary death when 
the Dorians threatened that state. The Archons 
for life M^ho succeed him, continue from 1068-752. 
The lonians, under Neleus, the son of Codrus, 
settle in that part of Asia Minor afterwards called 
Ionia, and in the islands of Samos and Chios. 

Lycurgus gives laws to Sparta, and introduced 
Homer's poems to notice. 

Spartan wars with Tegea and Argos, and affairs with 
Messenia. 

Rome founded. 

Archons of Athens limited to ten years magistracy, 
but still chosen from the family of Codrus. - 

First Messenian war, ended by the taking of Ithome, 
and the voluntary death of the Messenian king 
Aristodemus. The Messenians become tributary 
to Sparta, giving the produce of their land to the 



12 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



689 
682 

668 

679 
650 

640 
622 



victors. During this war the college of Ephors 
was established. 

Shalmanesar, king of Assyria, carries the ten 
tribes of Israel into captivity. 

Gyges, king of Lydia. Flourishing state of the Ion- 
ian cities. 

The ten years archonship abolished in Athens and 
yearly archons substituted. 

Aristomenes begins a struggle with Sparta for 
the recovery of Messenian independence. He is 
foiled, and Eira is taken, and the Messenians re- 
duced to the condition of Helots. 

Numa Pompilius, king of Rome. 

About this period Ardyes, king of Lydia, conquers 
Priene in Ionia. 

Thales born. 

Draco, archon of Athens, publishes his code. 

Josiah finds the book of the law and enforces its 
observance. 



B.C. 

610 

598 



568 
561 



560 
557 



556 
552 



OLTMP. 


XLII 


3 


XLT. 


3 


nil. 


1 


XIV. 


4 


IV. 


1 


"■" 


4 


LVI. 


1 


IVII. 


1 



Anaximander born 1 

Cyion endeavors to seize on the sovereign 
power at Athens. -; 

Jeremiah prophesied about this time. 
The expiation for the murder of Cy- 
lon's adherents made by Epimenides. 

Solon chosen archon with a charge to 
revise the laws. 

Anaximenes born 1 

Tyranny of Peisistratus in Athens. Cyrus, 
king of Persia, ascends the throne of the 
Medes also. 

Peisistratus is driven out. 

Sardis taken by Cyrus, Croesus, the ki 
of Lydia, made prisoner, and the king- 
dom of Lydia added to the Persian do- 
minions. 

Peisistratus, having allied himself by mar- 
riage with the family of Megacles, is ele- 
vated a second time to the tyranny. ] 

He is driven out a second time by Mega- 
cles. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



13 



B.C 

548 
540 



538 

536 

528 
514 



OLTMP. 

xyiii. 1 

XX. 1 



rxi. 1 

LXIII. 1 

ixvi. 3 



500 

496 
490 

486 

480 



479 

478 



477 
469 



XXX. 1 
XXXT. 1 

XXXII. 3 
XXXIII. 3 

XXXV. 1 



XXXV. 2 
3 

4 

XXXVIII. 4 



Death ofThales. 

Phocsea besieged by the troops of Cyrus ; 
the inhabitants ask a truce to deliberate 
respecting capitulation, and in the inte- 
rim embark on board their fleet, and 
abandon the city. They found Elea or 
Velia in Magna Graecia, and Massilia in 
Gaul, besides some settlements in Cor- 
sica. 

Pythagoras establishes his school of 
philosophy in Crotona. 

Third elevation of Peisistratus to the ty- 
ranny. He reigns till his death. 

Cyrus restores the Jews to their country. 

Death of Peisistratus. 

Hipparchus, the son of Peisistratus, slain 
by Harmodius and Aristogeiton ; conse- 
quent real tyranny of Hippias : return of 
the Alcmeeonidse, and banishment of 
Hippias. Cleisthenes, the son ofMega- 
cles, augments the number of the coun- 
cil from 400 to 500, and divides the 
tribes anew, making ten instead of four. 

The revolt of the Ionian states. 
Anaxagoras born. 

Miletus taken by the Persians. 

Battle of Marathon. 

Aristeides banished from Athens by ostra- 
cism. 

Heroic death of Leonidas and his compa- 
nions at Thermopylae 6lh July. Battle of 
Salamis 25th September. Anaxagoras 
comes to Athens this year? aged 20 
years. 

Battles of Plataea and Mycale 25th Sep- 
tember. 

Repeal of the law of Solon by which the 
Thetes were excluded from the govern- 
ment. 

The long walls to Piraeus built. 

Socrates born. Themistocles banished 
by ostracism this year or the following. 



14 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

468 
466 
465 

461 



456 
451 



449 

446 



444 
441 



431 
430 
429 

428 




ixxix. 4 



txxxi. 1 



rxxxii. 4 
txxxiii. 3 



LXXXIV. 1 
IXXXT1I.2 



tXXXTII.2 

3 

4 

LXXXTIII.l 



Cimon's victories over the Persians. 

Themistocles condemned — flies to Persia, 

Great earthquake at Sparta, and insurrec- 
tion of the Helots. 

Cimon banished by ostracism. Parme- 
nides flourished about this time, and 
Zeno Eleates his scholar, who was 25 
years his junior. 

Callias archon. Anaxagoras, then 44, 
comes to Athens a second time 1 

The Decemvirs established at Rome writ- 
ten laws, drawn up by them from those 
of Athens. 

Death of Cimon. 

Pericles makes a thirty years truce with 
the Lacedaemonians. Public accusation 
of Anaxagoras, Aspasia and Pheidias. 
Anaxagoras is banished. 

Thucydides, the son of Melesias, Pericles' 
political rival, banished by ostracism. 

Melissus, the pupil of Parmenides, defends 
Samos ineffectually against the Athen- 
ians. 

Outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. 

Plato born. 

Death of Pericles. 

Death of Anaxagoras. 



GREECE IN A SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 

FROM 1800 B. C. TO 1044 B. C. 

About eighteen hundred years before the Chris- 
tian era, a barbarous horde, under the guidance of a 
chief named Inachus, migrated from the coast of Asia 
Minor to the islands and coasts opposite ; which, 
previous to that time, if we may judge from the ex- 
ploits which the traditional stories of this people 
assigned to their heroes,* had been the haunts of wild 
beasts, which found shelter among rocks and forests 
as yet untrodden by the foot of man. We are not 
told the cause of this migration : but as we find in- 
dubitable monuments of two great empires, even at 
that early period, the one in Egypt and the other in 
India — we may perhaps add another also, bordering 
on the Euphrates, — it is not unreasonable to conclude 
that what we have seen occuring, even in our own 
days in North America, may have happened in this 
case also. The increasing force and population of a 
civilized people pressed upon the uncivilized tribes 
around: and voluntarily, or otherwise, the latter left 
the more fertile lands to their stronger competitors, 
and retreated to wilder hunting grounds. It was 
thus, probably, that the whole of Europe became 
peopled : the pressure from behind drove the more 

* Hercules, Theseus, and others are celebrated most espe- 
cially as destroyers of wild beasts. Even Apollo is chiefly 
famed as an expert archer, and one of his main exploits was 
the destruction of an enormous serpent. 



16 GREECE IN A 

barbarous tribes farther and farther north, till its most 
inhospitable regions were at last inhabited ; for among 
the scanty records of our Teutonic ancestors even, 
we find the tradition of a chief* with his followers 
arriving from Asia. 

At least a century was spent by the Pelasgit in a 
state of the wildest barbarism ; ignorant, if we may 
credit their own traditions, of the commonest arts of 
life, and wandering over the country with no settled 
habitation: but by degrees they associated into states, 
and Sicyon and Argos appear to have been under 
the government of their respective chiefs before 1500 
B. c. Pressed on again by other tribes, the Pelasgi 
passed over into Italy, into Crete, and into the ad- 
joining islands; and the four Hellenic families, the 
Dorians, the Achaians, the Cohans, and the lonians, 
spread over the lands they retired from. ' Colonies, 
too, from the more civilized countries, from Egypt, 
from Phoenicia, and from Mysia, fixed themselves 
in different parts ; and, probably, like other colonists 
settling among a rude people, carried with them the 
arts of war as well as of peace, and either by force 
or persuasion subjugated those whom they found in 
possession of the country. Cecrops, an Egyptian 
from Sais, is said to have founded Athens about four 
generations after the migration of Inachus ; and Cad- 
mus, a Phoenician, not far from that time, founded 
Thebes in Boeotia. About 1500 b. c. Danaus, an- 
other Egyptian, arrived in Argos, but here he found 
a monarchy established, and a walled town. He 
was allowed to bring forward his claims to admis- 
sion before an assembly of the people ; and they, led 

* Odin. 

t This is the name given by Greek writers to the first inhabit- 
ants or rather colonizers of the country. 






SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 17 

by what they considered an omen sent by the gods, 
were induced to depose the reigning monarch, and 
receive Danaus in his room.* We cannot tell what 
the arguments were which the Egyptian prince em- 
ployed in pleading before the people : we may con- 
jecture that the benefits of superior science were 
urged, since we find it recorded that Argos having 
previously been without water, save what fell from 
the heavens, the daughters of their new king taught 
the inhabitants the art of digging wells. Four of 
these wells were in after times held sacred, and re- 
ceived especial honors.t We may guess at the re- 
volution in manners caused by the administration of 
this monarch, from the circumstance that the ap- 
pellation of the people was changed from Pelasgi to 
Danai; a term which we find very frequently ap- 
plied by Homer to all the Greeks assembled before 
Ilium. 

The situation of Greece, with its numerous islands, 
soon led the people to undertake maritime and pirati- 
cal expeditions. That of the Argonauts, from the 
mythological grandeur with which it has been so 
carefully invested, would appear to have been either 
the first or the most important. But in those times, 
the pirate, like the Sea Kings of the Norwegians, 
was a gentleman ; and no discredit, as Thucydides 
informs us,t was attached to this mode of convey- 
ing away the property of others. The marauding 
expedition of Jason took place, probably, about 1250 
B. c. It was during the times of the Judges of Israel ; 
a period when the law of meum and tuum appears 
to have been very obscure all over the world. , 

* Pausan. 1. ii. c. 19, and Eurip. Orest. 
t Strabo, lib. viii. 
X Thucyd. lib. i. 



18 GREECE IN A 

Most chronologers place the Trojan war, cele- 
brated in the Iliad, about 1200 b. c* At that time 
the Achaian states, for so Homer terms them, were 
rude, but yet raised far beyond absolute barbarism. 
We find bards celebrating the exploits of their heroes ; 
Sidonian workmanship adorning their vases, and 
their robes ; and a kind of rough luxury in the courts 
of their princes, which reminds us of the state of 
Mexico or Peru, when discovered by Cortez and 
Pizarro. It matters not whether we consider the 
Homeric poems as the work of one man, or the lays 
of different bards collected ; still they must be valid 
evidence of the state of manners about that time, for 
their geographical correctness shows that they could 
not have been written any long time after the events 
took place. In these early ages no maps or books 
of travels furnished the romancist with the means of 
giving* verisimilitude to his tale; therefore geogra- 
phical precision could only have been attained by 
personal knowledge, or the narration of actors in the 
scenes recorded. 

About a hundred years after this, an event occur- 
red which for a time threatened to overcloud the 
dawning civilization of Achaia. This was the ir- 
ruption of the Dorians, a mountain tribe, who pre- 
served in their fastnesses much of the rudeness of 
their forefathers. They were invited to this invasion 
of the more civilized regions by the descendants of 
Hercules, who having been expelled by Eurystheus 
from the countries which they considered theirs by 
right of inheritance or conquest, took advantage 
probably of the weakness and disunion among the 

Achaian states, which followed upon the Trojan war, 
to urge their claims anew. A first but unsuccessful 

* From 1194 to 1184 b. c, Heeren. 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 1^ 

attempt had been made under the guidance of Hyl- 
lus, the son of Hercules, about 1180 b. c. ; his de- 
scendants, having leagued with the ^tolians also, 
finally triumphed. Argos, Sparta, Messenia, and 
Corinth, fell under the Dorian rule:* the Achaians, 
driven step by step from their country, fell back 
upon the lonians, who occupied the coast nearest to 
Asia; and they in their turn, driven on before the 
advancing tide of invasion, retreated upon Attica, 
where they were hospitably received by the Athe- 
nians, who sprang from the same stock. But the 
narrow territory of Attica could not long maintain so 
large an increase of population, and in 1044 b. c. 
Androclus and Neleus, the sons of that Codrus who 
by his self-devotion had saved Athens from Dorian 
conquest, led an Ionian colony back to the coast of 
Asia Minor: cities were founded,! and the province 
thus taken possession of, received thenceforth the 
name of Ionia. The islands of Samos and Chios 



* Probably the dissensions between the aristocratic and popu- 
lar factions in after times, had the character of a war of caste. 
The conquering Dorians had usurped the property in the soil ; 
the conquered Achaians were the cultivators, for them, of lands 
which were once their own. Thus it was in Lacedaemon where 
the Spartans, i. e., the' Dorian conquerors, remained a distinct 
people from the Lacedaemonian cultivators, who, again, were a 
step above their former slaves, the Helots, and those who were 
afterwards reduced to a state of slavery. The contests for poli- 
tical supremacy between the patricians and plebeians of Rome, 
Avere probably of the same kind, for the very names of the ple- 
beian consuls sound barbarous and strange among those of the 
patrician families, as if they were of a different race. We may 
see a modern illustration of this state of things in Ireland, 
where the conquered and the conquering people have failed to 
amalgamate. 

t There were ten Ionian cities, i. e., Phocaea, Erythrae,Clazo- 
mene, Teos, Lebedus, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, and 
Miletus. The latter was the nurse of that philosophy which 
afterwards made Athens famous. 



20 GREECE IN A 

too, the latter said to have been the residence of 
Homer, received Ionian colonies. 

Thus the civilization which was checked for a time 
by the conquests of the Dorian hordes, was preserved 
in the cities of Ionia, and sent back its missionaries, 
after a time, to achieve a nobler victory — that of arts 
and philosophy over ignorance and barbarism. From 
this period the people of Greece may be considered 
as divided into two great families, the Ionian and the 
Dorian, in which the others were in great measure 
absorbed. The Athenians may be looked upon as 
the representatives of the first; the Spartans of the 
last. 

It would be a wearisome and hopeless labor were 
I to attempt to trace with any accuracy the theology 
or philosophy of these early periods, buried as they 
are under a mass of allegory and fable, which we 
have now no means of removing; yet in the very 
scanty records of those times, there are traces of a 
purer morality, and a more worthy religious belief 
than is exhibited in the gross mythology of the Ho- 
meric poems.* The date assigned to the migration 
conducted by Inachus from the Asian shore, coin- 
cides very nearly with that of the removal of the 
Israelitish family into Egypt. At that time the wor- 
ship prevalent among the Nomade tribes of Asia, if 
we may judge from the book of Job, seems to have 
been that of One Almighty Creator, typified by, and 
already beginning to be confounded with the light, 

* Herodotus, lib. ii. c. 53, gives it as his opinion that Homer 
and Hesiod were the inventors of the genealogies and names 
of the gods; and Diogenes Laertius reports that Pythagoras was 
said to have descended into the infernal regions, and to have 
there seen Homer and Hesiod suffering various punishments for 
what they had reported about the gods. Diog. Laert. in vita 
Pythag., lib. viii. ^ 21. 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 21 

or sun ; the rest of the heavenly bodies sharing in 
the reverence paid to the apparent source of life. 
Herodotus states that at Dodona he was told that 
they had formerly sacrificed and prayed to the Deity 
in general, without giving any name or names to the 
object of their worship ; but that after a long time, 
the names of the gods M^ere brought them from Egypt. 
Plato mentions a tradition of one God governing the 
universe, though generally in so strangely disguised 
a form that we may fancy that the fate of his master 
Socrates inspired him with some fear of speaking too 
plainly.* Aristoteles is more explicit, and avers,t 
that " it was an ancient saying received by all from 
their ancestors, that all things exist by and through 

the power of God who being One was known 

by many names according to his modes of manifest- 
ation." 

The very early division of the more polished na- 
tions of India and Egypt into castes, which occa- 
sioned a separation of the priesthood from the people, 
was probably the cause then, as it always has been, 
of a grosser worship on the part of the latter. The 
learned sacerdotal caste reserved to itself the more 
abstruse parts of theology ; partly perhaps from a 
natural desire to keep up the superiority which, how- 
ever acquired, is always gratifying ; and partly, too, 
from an opinion that the doctrine was too sublime for 
the comprehension of the ignorant multitude. Then 
came the plan of teaching the people by symbols 
which, from their more tangible nature, were likely 
to impress themselves on the recollection better than 
abstract truths. The key to these mysterious symbols 
was in the hands of the priests ; and possibly they 

* Plato, Politicus and TinriEeus. 
t Aristot. de Mundo, c. 6, 7. 



22 GREECE IN A 

themselves hardly knew how far the people in gene- 
ral had lost sight of their original meaning. We 
may turn to times nearer our own for an almost 
parallel instance : for when the irruption of barbarians 
into the Roman empire gave the Christian ministers 
the superiority in learning, they soon were tempted 
to use it in the same way. Feigned miracles and a 
more gross and tangible worship were made use of 
to subjugate or to captivate the minds of the ignorant 
people about them ; for, finding them too rude to be 
argued into a better faith, they thought that by first 
obtaining a superstitious reverence, they might finally 
guide them to better things:* They forgot that when 
they had loaded religion with ceremonial observances, 
there was danger that even the priests themselves, 
at some future time, might possibly become infected 
with the general superstition, and suffer the substance 
to escape whilst they were grasping the shadow of 
truth. 

Doubtless the sacerdotal caste of Egypt retained 
for a considerable time the remembrance of the occult 
meaning of the symbols they used ; and supposed 
they were preserving the knowledge of a theology 
whose vivifying influence they were daily losing more 
and more, as it became a source of worldly advan- 
tage, till at last they saw in it only a fable which was 
useful to them.t They, too, had to encounter at 

* When the pagan Anglo-Saxons were first converted to 
Christianity, we find Gregory, the Roman bishop, thus writing 
to the missionaries he had sent into Britain — " And because 
they (the Saxons) have been used to slaughter many oxen in the 
sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them 
. . . to the end that whilst some gratifications are outwardly per- 
mitted them, they may the more readily consent to the inward con- 
solation of the grace of God." Bede's Eccles. Hist., chap. 30, 

t The transition from Gregory indulging his heathen con- 
verts with solemnities in honor of " the nativities of the holy 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 23 

times the invasion of barbarians, on whose supersti- 
tious fears they might depend for safety : or they had 
to resist, as a corporation, the encroachment of mo- 
narchs upon their privileges, in which contest, again, 
the superstition of the people was an useful ally. 
Thus the motives for encouraging a grosser worship 
were strong ; the danger was remote, and at that 
time unknown. Few, even now after the experience 
of ages, seem to be aware that there must be a ra- 
tional conviction of the truth of our faith ere it will 
influence the heart and life : and it has been the 
error of all ages to imagine that it is better to keep 
the people ignorant, and obedient to guidance, than 
to give them the light which will enable them to 
guide themselves. The difficulty of the undertaking 
has generally been the first discouragement : indo- 
lence and the love of power have usually done the 
rest. 

Orpheus is the person to whom ancient writers 
have attributed the introduction of a multitude of 
gods. He is said to have been a Thracian; — to 
have accompanied Jason and the other Argonauts on 
their piratical expedition, — to have visited Egypt, — 
and to have brought from thence the doctrines with 
which he afterwards corrupted the rude but simple 
theology of Greece. The poems and hymns attri- 
buted to him are many of them considered to be 
spurious, or much interpolated; but as far as ancient 
testimony goes, there seems little doubt that the doc- 
trine he taught was that of One Self-existent 

martyrs, to the end that they may the more easily consent to 
the inward consolations of God" — to Leo X. exclaiming, — 
" This fable of Jesus Christ has been very useful to us" — is 
curious and instructive. The step had then been made from the 
apostolically-minded though ill-judging prelate, to the selfish 
maintainer of the interests of his caste. 



24 GREECE IN A 

God, the Maker of all things, who is present to us 
in all His works : but this great truth was disguised 
under a mass of fables.* We may take as a speci- 
men one of those which has reached us. "The 
origin of the earth was ocean : when the water sub- 
sided, mud remained, and from both of these sprang 
a living creature ; — a dragon having the head of a 
lion growing from it, and in the midst, the face of 
God: by name Hercules or Chronos," (time.) By 
him an immense egg was produced, which being 
split into two parts, one became the heavens, the 
other the earth. Heaven and earth mingled, and 
produced Titans or Giants.t 

Material things having been produced by some 
mysterious operation of the Divinity upon Chaos, 
all were held to be imbued with a portion of the 
Divine Essence : and as, according to the doctrine 
of the sacerdotal caste, the Supreme Deity was too 
mighty to be approached by the vulgar, every object 
in nature was, as it were, deified, for the use of the 
people ; and the portion of the Divinity by which it 
was supposed to be animated, had a peculiar name 
given to it, by which it might be invoked. The 
initiated, for the mysteries are said to owe their com- 
mencement to Orpheus, were taught that the Oner 
Supreme Deity was the source of all, and that the 
tutelary gods of air, fire, earth, (fee, were in fact only 
emanations of his power, made manifest to men by 
tangible and visible objects. But when the Most 
High was no longer to be approached by the vulgar, 
the especial manifestation was soon individualized, 
and a polytheism which probably the first intro- 

* See Cudworth, Syst. Int. cap. iv. '5s 17, and Brucker, Hist. 
Crit. Phil, pars ii. lib. i. cap. 1, where the Orphic doctrines are 
fully discussed. 

t Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ, p. 17, folio ed. 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 25 

ducers of this mysterious doctrine never contem- 
plated, was built upon it. 

Itis curious that to this day the rude tribes of Africa 
and of North America retain something of this early 
doctrine : the fetiche of the Negro, and the " medicine 
bag" or amulet of the Red Man, both consist of in- 
significant .objects supposed to have some mysterious, 
in-dwelling, Divine potency linked to, yet quite dis- 
tinct in nature from the object visible to the eyes. 
The fetiche in Africa even now is not unfrequently 
a stone or a tree, or some other inanimate object; 
and if we look back into the early times we are treating 
of, we shall find the same thing. The representa- 
tion of the Cithaeronian Juno, worshiped by the 
Thespians, was the trunk of a tree : — another of the 
Samian Juno, was a branch or log, afterwards 
fashioned into something of a human shape by the 
order of Procleus the Archon. Diana and Ceres 
were represented in like manner:* and the Dioscuri 
among the old Spartans had no image save two 
beams or trunks of trees, united by two transverse 
pieces.! The ancient Romans worshiped the god 
of war, under the form of a spear; the Scythians 
deified a sabre ; the Arabs, down to the time of Ma- 
hommed even, had their sacred stone. We might 
have been puzzled by these short notices, had we 
not an instance of this kind of early worship record- 
ed more at length. When the patriarch Jacob had 

* Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 4. See also Tertull. adv. Gentes. 
Lucan, in his description of the sacred grove felled by Caesar's 
orders, describes the representations of the Deities as rude 
trunks of trees. 

" Simulacraque moesta deorum 

Arte carent, caesisque extent informia truncis." 

Pharsal. lib. iii. 1. 411. 
t Plutarch, De amor. frat. 



26 GREECE IN A 

had a divine vision, he awoke out of his sleep, and 
said, "How dreadful is this place! this is none 
other but the house of God, and this is the gate of 
Heaven." And Jacob arose early in the morning, 
and took the stone that he had put for a pillow, and 
set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, 
and vowed, "If God will be with me .... so that 
I come again to my father's house in peace, then 
shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I 
have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house ; and 
of all that Thou shalt give me, surely I will give the 
tenth unto Thee." This place he called Bethel: — 
some centuries later Bethel was an idolatrous temple. 
The history of this one was probably the history of 
all. 

The mysterious doctrine of Orpheus which gave 
tangibility and distinctness to the notions of the 
Deity, soon struck the imagination of the poet: 
Homer and Hesiod took it up, and finished the in- 
dividualizing process, by giving names and forms* 
to the various sub-deities of the different powers of 
nature. Yet these were, for a long time, only the 
poetical version of the old belief: — ^the One Supreme 
God still held the reins, and Destiny was looked up 
to as the ruler of these sub-gods, no less than of 
men. iEschylus, whose tragic genius found fitter 
matter in the simple, but sublime traditions of his 
forefathers, -than in the ridiculous and disgusting 
tales of the Homeric mythology, has handed down 
to our days this part of the still popular faith, in his 
noble drama of Prometheus Chained : where he re- 
presents Jupiter as sending to beg from the prophet 

* Athenagoras, after quoting Herodotus for the above asser- 
tion respecting Homer, adds, that until the statuaries had given 
human shape to the gods, they had not been named even. 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 27 

the knowledge of the yet future decrees of Destmy. 
Prometheus, v/ho pretends to no foreknowledge but 
that of some few of these decrees which had been 
communicated to him., indignantly refuses to gratify 
the curiosity of his oppressor; who, in consequence, 
inflicts further tortures upon him, but cannot obtain 
the desired prediction. The expressions put into 
the mouth of Prometheus are remarkable,* and the 
whole drama so wars against our general notions of 
the popular belief at that time, that in order to ex- 
plain the possibility of such a public recitation being 
permitted and approved, we must suppose an under- 
current of a very different theology from that of 
Hesiod. The invectives which the oppressed Titan 
utters against the neiv power of Jove ; the allusions 



nP. ou raura, rauTtj fxoipa, 'ttcii rS'KST<popog 

Kfavai TTETrpcorai . . ... 

re)(yri ^avayznt aff-BsvBo-rspa, fxaxp^f 
XO. Ti'f ovv a.vayKY'.q Iittiv olaKOTr^Q<pog ; 

XO. TouTOvV apct. Zsu? Icttjv cLTQ^via-Tipof; ; 
IIP- IvK oZv av liKpvyoi yz rriv TmrpoofXEVW. 

?HOM. Fate, which brings about its own ends, 
Has not ordained this to be . . . 
Art is much weaker than Destiny. 

Cho. But who holds the rudder of Destiny? 

Peom. The three formed Fates, the ever remembering Aven- 
gers. 

Cho. Is Jupiter weaker than these ? 

Prom. He cannot escape from what is fated. 

The masculine adjective attached to the feminine substantive 
Moi^ai, shows sufficiently that this poet, at least, had not the 
three old spinning women in his mind when he wrote the above 
passage. Aristoteles says in his treatise ttejc koo-^ov, c. 7 ; oTjOcas 
S'l naX rriV AvayJtnv oust «XXo Tt ?^iyscr9ai, 7rXr;v toStov, otovsi a,\ivttTOV 
ova-iav ovra. "I think indeed that Destiny is nothing else but 
this, — i. e. God — so called from his unchangeableness." This 
philosopher adds that the three fates meantthe past, present, and 
future. 



28 GREECE IN A 

to wars in which he had himself assisted hhii, <fec., 
lead us back very naturally to the time of the first 
colonization of Greece: and we can hardly avoid the 
conclusion that the Nature-worship of Orpheus had 
been mixed up with Hero-worship also, and that the 
Jupiter of the poets was little else than a successful 
Cretan pirate, who, with his companions, drove out 
the Asian chief who was beginning to civilize the 
people, and banished him to the wild regions of the 
Caucasus. If several centuries had elapsed between 
Prometheus, supposing such a person to have existed, 
and Hesiod, it was quite long enough, in times w^hen 
song was the only record, to have invested con- 
querors, or benefactors of the human race, with some 
supernatural attributes; a kind of pre-eminence 
which every master mind, in times of ignorance, is 
sure to attain. 

The result, then, of the inquiry thus far, appears 
to be, that the first colonizers of Greece brought 
with them much of the simple faith and worship 
which we find recorded in the early Hebrew writings : 
a stone or a trunk of a tree was set up for a memorial, 
and the sons of him who had there experienced 
some deliverance, or been alarmed by some dream, 
worshiped where their ancestor had done, that 
Great Being whose rule they acknowledged, but 
whose name they ventured not to pronounce.* Su- 
perstitious practices doubtless were mingled with 
this worship : the vow of Jephthah had more than 
its parallel in the sacrifice of Iphigenia and of Po- 
lyxena.t It was this ferocious race that Orpheus, 

* Plutarch makes it a question why the Romans did not per- 
mit the god who especially protected Rome to be named, or 
made a subject of idle inquiry ? Another proof that every nation 
felt that there was a Most High, whom they regarded with 
awe. 

t These events must all have occurred within thirty years. 



SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 29 

the polished and learned traveler, endeavored to 
humanize. Perhaps he imagined that his hidden 
doctrine would improve those of a higher rank, who 
were likely to be initiated; while the minds of the 
vulgar would be amused by his fables, and weaned 
from more gloomy superstitions by the worship of 
Divine Benevolence, as manifested in the different 
powers of nature. But however well meant the at- 
tempt, it failed of its object : the grossness of an igno- 
rant age converted the different manifestations into 
separate Deities ; and as, in later times, the crucifix 
or the image of the Virgin in some particular church 
was held to be more efficacious than any other, and 
to have some especial virtue of its own; so some 
particular representation or memorial of the Divine 
power was deemed more wonder-working than an- 
other, and different cities came to have their tutelary 
stone, or log, or finally, — statue. The temple was 
built on the spot which early and pure devotion had 
hallowed, as was the case at Bethel: the men of the 
age when it was erected saw only the honor done 
to the place where their earliest feelings of piety had 
been awakened ; and it was only in times far subse- 
quent, that the cause of its first consecration Avas for- 
gotten, and the image which reposed in that gorgeous 
fane became the object of ignorant worship, and the 
source of profit to a mercenary priesthood. 



II. 

GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

FROM 1044 B. C. TO 512 B. C. 

We have already taken a slight view of the for- 
tunes of the early colonizers of Hellas up to the in- 
vasion of the Dorian hordes,* whose conquests drove 
the more civilized inhabitants forward towards the 
coast, and the territory of Attica, whence they re-co- 
lonized Asia Minor", and founded tire cities of Ionia. 
From that time during- a period of nearly three hun- 
dred years, tradition scarcely furnishes an event save 
the extensive colonization of the islands and coasts 
adjacent, by Cohans, and Dorians, as well as loni- 
ans, a silent proof of the increasing population, and 
maritime enterprise, of the different states. The 
death of Codrus, the Athenian ruler, had left room 
for a contest as to the succession to the throne ; and 
during the disputes of the two competitors, a third 
party had arisen, v/hich refused to allow any other 
king than Jupiter.t The elder son of Codrus ob- 
tained the sanction of the Delphian oracle, and the 
democratic party were conciliated by what was os- 
tensibly a compliment to Codrus. No one was 
worthy to bear the same title with this heroic mo- 
narch ; his son therefore was only allowed the title 
of Archon, accompanied with some limitation of the 
regal power. His descendants continued to enjoy 

* This event is sometimes called " The return of the Hera- 
ciidse." 

t Schol. Aristoph. Nub. quoted by Mitford in his Hist, of 
Greece. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 31 

this rank till 752 b. c. when, without any assigned 
cause, the archonship was rendered a magistracy of 
ten years duration only, though still confined to the 
family of Codrus. History says nothing, but we 
may reasonably conclude, from such an event, that 
the great families were becoming powerful: that acts 
of oppression had been committed by the hereditary 
archons, which had alienated the affections of the 
commonalty, and that the nobility, by their aid, ef- 
fected a revolution which put the main power of the 
state into their own hands; for as the selection of 
archon was henceforward vested in them, he became 
little better than their puppet. After a lapse of 
seventy years, during Avhich, as before, no event is 
noted, a farther change was made in the government: 
the Archonship for ten years was abolished ; the of- 
fice was now to be held for one year only, and its 
power was divided among nine persons, who were 
chosen by lot from among the nobility. This far- 
ther change was followed, as might be expected, by 
contests among the principal families for the power 
now within their reach, and attempts to seize upon 
the sovereignty. 

During this time Sparta was engaged in a twenty 
years war with Messenia,* and its events may give 
some notion of the manners of the times. It took 
place about the time when the ten tribes of Israel 
were carried into captivity by Shalmaneser, King of 
Assyria, and a little after the foundation of Rome. 
We find the King of Messenia encouraging his men 
to a desperate resistance, by depicting the miseries 
which would attend a defeat : their wives and chil- 
dren would be carried into hopeless slavery, their 
temples would be plundered and burnt, and their 

* From 742—722 b. c. 



32 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

country desolated.* When defeated, they apply to 
the oracle at Delphi, and receive a command to sacri- 
fice a virgin of the blood of Epytus to the infernal 
deities; whereupon Aristodemus, a nobleman of that 
family, proffers his own daughter as a sacrifice, 
whom he afterwards slays with his own hands,t 
and dissects, in order to show that she had not been 
contaminated, as had been asserted, in order to save 
her life. 

The war ended by reducing the Messenians to the 
condition of farmers of their own lands for the bene- 
fit of Sparta ; a state of things not likely to be long 
brooked by a high-spirited, and, till then, independ- 
ent people : the same year which was signalized 
by the change in the Athenian government to annual 
Archons, was marked also by the beginning of a 
second Messenian war, in which the gallant Aristo- 
menes strove to free his countrymen from their bond- 
age. The Spartans, alarmed by his exploits, con- 
sulted the Delphian oracle, and received for answer 
that they should seek a counselor from Athens ; but 
the Athenians, when called upon to comply with the 
commands of the god, unwilling to aid the growing 
strength of Sparta, picked out a person they thought 
little likely to be useful ; the lame Tyrtaeus, — hither- 
to known only as a teacher of grammar, which, in 
those times, when prose writing was little practised, 
included the art of poetry, and probably of rhetoric. 
Athens, it seems, had not yet been taught the power 
of words over the mind : — the Messenians learnt it 
to their cost : — the songs of Tyrtaeus, worthy of a 
better cause, inspirited the defeated Spartans, and 

* Pausan. lib. iv. c. 7, 

t About fifly years before this, the King of Moab in like man- 
ner, when defeated, oifered his own son and heir for a burnt 
olfering. See 2 Kings iii. 27. 



GREECE TINDER ITS SAGES. 33 

the sword of Aristomenes proved weak against the 
might of poesy : Messenia again lay at the feet of 
her ruthless conquerors, and they used their advan- 
tage barbarously : the Helots of after times, who 
were periodically hunted down like wild beasts, were 
chiefly Messenians. 

The change of government in Athens, had either 
been caused by, or was attended with great popu- 
lar disorders. Notwithstanding the severe code of 
laws promulgated by Draco, during his archonship, 
the great families still engaged in bloody dissensions ; 
and about 598 b. c. Cylon, a man of noble, though 
not regal descent, seized on the citadel, and endea- 
vored to make himself sole ruler : Megacles, then 
archon, and of the family of Codrus, opposed him; 
after a short struggle he fled, and his adherents took 
sanctuary at the most sacred of all the altars of 
Athens, that of the Eumenides, or avengers. They 
were lured from thence by treachery, and massa- 
cred ; a sacrilege which was for a long time urged 
as a cause for banishing all connections of the family 
engaged in it. 

Wearied at last by civil broils, and the revolts of 
subject states consequent upon them, all eyes in 
Athens were turned upon one man, as the only per- 
son capable of reforming the state. Solon was 
made archon, with full power to re-model the con- 
stitution. After promulgating his laws,* he pro- 
ceeded to travel in other countries, and in his absence 
Peisistratus possessed himself, by a stratagem, of the 
sovereignty. Notwithstanding the mode of attaining 
it, both he and his sons used their power well : the 

* 594 B. c. They will be found at length in Mitford's History 
of Greece, chap. v. sect. 4, or more briefly in Heeren's Hand- 
buch der Geschichte der Staaten des Alterthums, part iii. ^ 14, 
a work of extraordinary merit. 



34 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

laws of Solon were maintained ; Athens was beauti- 
fied ; means were taken for humanizing the citizens 
by the introduction of the fine arts ; charitable pro- 
vision was made for orphans, for the infirm and 
aged ; and in the absence of books, moral sentences 
were inscribed in conspicuous places :* the state Avas 
respected abroad, and enjoyed peace at home. This 
state of things was changed by the assassination of 
Hipparchus, the younger of Peisistratus's two sons, 
in consequence of a private pique.t Hippias the 
elder brother, equally incensed and alarmed, began 
to seek foreign alliances for his family, and to rule 
with great severity at home, which soon disgusted 
the people ; the banished family of Megacles returned, 
and, with the aid of the Spartans, and the now dis- 
contented Athenians, expelled him. Cleisthenes, 
the son of Megacles, assumed the chief rule, and the 
first innovation in the laws of Solon was made by 
increasing the number of tribes from four to ten, and 
that of the great council from four hundred to five 

* " These tyrants," says Thucydides, dwelling mockingly on 
the word applied to them by Athenian tradition, " These tyrants 
greatly cultivated wisdom and virtue." Thucyd. lib. vi. The 
poor-law above mentioned, was extended to all who by mutila- 
tion, sickness, or age, were incapable of maintaining them- 
selves ; and amounted to from one to two oboli per diem, which 
was sufficient to purchase the necessaries of life: orphans were 
maintained and educated at the expense of the state, up to the 
age of eighteen, when they were armed and placed in the army. 
See Boeckh's Public (Economy of Athens. 

t The conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, though 
hymned by the Athenians of after times as the struggle of free 
men against tyranny, is said by the dispassionate Thucydides to 
have originated in motives as impure as the execution of their 
plan, if it had been merely for the overthrow of the tyranny, 
was unsuccessful. But the hated rival was destroyed, which, 
probably, was the chief consideration. The attempt was no less 
unpopular than unsuccessful, for Aristogeiton, who escaped the 
guards, was seized by the people, and most unmercifully 
handled. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 35 

hundred. But though the change probably had in 
view the giving a somewhat more popular form to 
the government, or at least the curbing the power of 
the adherents of the banished family, no single ruler 
could be brooked : Cleisthenes and his Spartan allies 
were forcibly opposed and defeated, and the aristo- ■ 
democratic form of government in Athens was con- 
firmed. 

The period which has just been slightly glanced over 
was fertile in great men. The power which mental 
cultivation affords to its possessor was for the most 
part nobly used ; and few purer or more disinterested 
philanthropists are to be found than the lawgivers and 
sages of this period, whose names have been handed 
down to us by the gratitude of their fellow-citizens. 
The names of Zaleucus, Charondas, Lycurgus, and 
Solon, are still famous as having been able legis- 
lators ; and if they failed to produce a perfect code, 
we may admit for them all, the excuse which Solon 
made for himself, when asked if he had given the 
Athenians the best possible laws, according to his 
own opinion. The sage replied that he had not ; 
but that he had given them the best they were capa- 
ble of receiving.* From Moses downwards this has 
probably been the case, for the attempt to cut down 
prejudices all at once, and to change the whole cus- 
toms and manners of a nation, would but end in the 
destruction of the imprudent innovator, without im- 
proving the people ; unless, as in the case of Chris- 
tianity, the system was supported by superhuman 
means. 

The custom of Greece gave the title of '^o^o^, or 
sage, to those who excelled their fellows in science, 
or moral worth. It is fabled, or perhaps the tale 

* Plutarch in Vita Solonis. 



36 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

may be a fact, that a golden tripod having been 
drawn up in their nets by some fishermen of Mile- 
tus, a quarrel arose as to its possession. The oracle 
at Delphi was consulted, and the dissension was al- 
layed by its award of the tripod " to the wisest." 
The Milesians, by common consent, then offered it 
to their countryman Thales, who, with a laudable 
modesty, sent it on to Bias of Priene, who trans- 
ferred it to Pittacus, and Pittacus to another yet, till 
it came seventhly to Solon, who finding no other 
mortal worthy of it, dedicated it to Apollo, as the 
only wise.* 

The names of the seven among whom the tripod 
thus passed round, are differently given by differ- 
ent authors. Thales is, however, always placed at 
the head of them. He was a native of Miletus, in 
that Ionia where Grecian civilization had sought an 
asylum from Dorian barbarism ; and he is looked up 
to as the founder of the Ionic school of philosophy, 
so fruitful in great men ; and which closed its bright 
career by imbuing with its doctrines the son of a 
stone-cutter, who, in spite of humble birth and pov- 
erty, won for himself the most illustrious name in 
all antiquity ; and whose purity of doctrine, and 
holiness of life, wrung from Erasmus the acknow- 
ledgment, that when he perused the life of this 
heathen, he felt tempted to exclaim, " Sancte So- 
crates ! ora pro nobis !" 

At an earlier period legislation and political science 
had alone attracted the notice of the sage ; but atten- 
tion was now turned to the natural sciences also. 
" Thales, the Milesian," says Cicero, " who was the 
first who made such things a subject of inquiry, said 
that water was the origin of all things ; but God the 

* See Brueker, Hist. Crit. Phil, p, ii. iib. i. c. 2, 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 37 

mind which formed all things from it."* There is 
in this a striking parallelism to the history of crea- 
tion given by Moses, scarcely to be accounted for, 
unless we suppose his opinions on this head derived 
from tradition. Thales had visited Egypt : he was 
somewhat junior to the Prophet Isaiah, and such an 
event as the destruction of Sennacherib's army could 
not but have made a strong impression on surround- 
ing nations. The sage, traveling for information, 
could therefore scarcely avoid the having his atten- 
tion drawn to the Hebrew records ; which is made 
the more probable from an expression which Plato 
puts into the mouth of Socrates ; that, for the higher 
doctrines of theology, his disciples must go to the 
barbarians.! The other opinions of Thales, as far 
as we have them recorded, are these — " God is the 
eldest of all things, for he is without beginning.^ 
Death differs not from life, the soul being immortal," 
— as a consequence of which, he believed the uni- 
verse to be full of the disembodied souls of good and 
bad men, called by the Greeks daemons . When 
asked " if a bad man could hide his evil actions from 
the Divine power?" " Not even his evil thoughts," 
he replied ; and when farther questioned, " how to 
lead an honorable and a just life ?" he answered, 
" By not doing ourselves what we blame in others." 
When asked " what is fairest?" he replied, "The 
world, for it is the work of God."§ 

Thales is said to have had no teacher but the 
priests of Egypt ; under their tuition, and by his own 
industry, however, he made considerable progress in 
geometry and astronomy. He is said to have sacri- 

* Cicero de Nat. Deor 1. i. c. 10. 

t Plato Dial. Phoedon. t aysr/mov. 

§ Diog. Laert. lib. i. ^ 35, 36, 37. 



38 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

ficed an ox in thankfulness for the discovery that 
a right angled triangle could be inscribed in half a 
circle; and to have measured the pyramids, by com- 
paring the length of the shadow with his own. In 
astronomy his opinions probably were clearer than 
his reporters make them. His first assertion that 
night preceded the day, is again in conformity with 
the Hebrew account ; he is farther said to have con- 
sidered the stars and moon to be of terrestrial sub- 
stance, the former ignited, the latter giving light by 
reflection from the sun. His disciples are said to 
have taught that the earth, was in the centre of the 
system ;* but as that doctrine is elsewhere stated 
to have been first broached by Parmeni^es,t it is 
probable that Thales himself did not teach this. He 
is recorded to have predicted a total eclipse of the 
sun, which occurred in his time; the first calculated 
eclipse on record.t He considered that all bodies, 
though almost infinitely divisible, were composed of 
atoms, i. e. particles incapable of farther division ; 
and in this he was followed by Pythagoras :§ and 
he was no stranger to the magnetic and electric pro- 
perties of the loadstone, and of amber. He is said 
to have considered these substances as endowed 
with souls ;|| yet considering the decline of Grecian 
literature at the time the accounts which have reached 
us were written, considering too that the use of the 
mariner's compass was known, and had been known 
from time immemorial in some of the countries visit- 



* Plutarch, de Placitis Phil. 1, iii. c. 2. 

t Diog, Laert. in vit. Parmen. 

t Cic. de Divin. 1. i. c. 49. 

^ Plut. de Placitis Phil. 1. i. c. 16. 

II Aristoteles notices this opinion with regard to the loadstone 
in his treatise de anima, arguing from it that Thales must have 
considered the soul a force capable of causing movement, since 
he attributed a soul to the loadstone. De Anim. lib. i. c. 2. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 39 

ed by Vasco de Gama ;* we may give Thales credit 
for more knowledge on these subjects than either 
Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius was able to explain ; 
probably as much as we ourselves possessed up to 
the middle of the last century. Such were the ex- 
traordinary strides in knowledge made by one man 
almost unassisted ; we cannot wonder that his coun- 
trymen voted him the tripod. He lived to the age 
of ninety, and died full of years and honor, at the 
representation of the Olympic games, 540 b. c. Pa- 
ganism had not then become bigoted to falsehood, 
as was the case in after times, when the idolatry of 
the people became a part of the polity of states ; and 
Thales could profess without reproach, what after- 
wards sent Anaxagoras into banishment, and cost 
Socrates his life. 

Epimenides of Crete has by some been placed 
among the seven sages of Greece : at any rate he 
was in habits of intimacy with them. He is, how- 
ever, more noted as a man of piety and holy life, 
then as deeply versed in science. He was sent for 
to Athens after the massacre of Cylon's adherents, 
to purify the city from the guilt which was supposed 
to have incurred the wrath of the gods, and occa- 
sioned a pestilence. Various lustrations were used by 
him ; among other ceremonies, he ordered a certain 
number of white and black sheep to be let loose on 
Mars' hill,t and wherever they lay down, he directed 
that an altar should be built to the god to whom that 
spot belonged : but to this god no name was allowed 
to be given. The order was scrupulously obeyed: 
seven centuries later, Paul, the apostle, stood ujDon 
this spot, pointed to the altar of the unknown God, 

* See Bailly, Hist, de I'Astronomie. 

t "ApEJOTTaj/oj. The court of Areopagus was held here. 



40 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

and spoke the doctrine boldly, which Epimenides had 
been too timid to give utterance to, or which perhaps 
he had but dimly discerned. A painter could not 
ask a finer subject than the intrepid apostle, laying 
his hand on that altar, which neither the arms of 
Xerxes, nor the yet more destructive force of time 
had injured, raising the other to heaven, and exclaim- 
ing to the astonished Athenians, " Whom ye igno- 
rantly worship, him declare I unto you — the God 

THAT MADE HeAVEN AND EaRTH !" 

Many fabulous stories are told of Epimenides, and 
it is said that after his death divine honors were 
awarded him by his admiring countrymen ; what is 
more certain, is, that he declined all the riches offered 
him by the Athenians, and asked only a free passage 
home, and their friendship for the Gnossians his 
townsmen.* 

Solon, by general consent has been placed among 
the wise seven. Younger than Thales and Epi- 
menides, he was nevertheless intimate with both, 
and, like the former, appears to have made con- 
siderable proficiency in the natural sciences ; for it 
is said that he corrected the reckoning of the lunar 
month made by Thales. His fame, however, rests 
mainly upon his laws, which, according to the state 
of society they were intended for, were probably 
wise ones, and as good as could have been promul- 
gated without personal danger. What that state was, 
we may gather from what remains to us of his code. 
By his laws all freemen were divided into four ranks, 
determined by the amount of property. The first 
rank consisted of those whose land produced them 
yearly five hundred measures! of corn, wine, oilj or 

* Diog. Laert. lib. i. § 111. 

t Medinini. A medimnus was about 12 gallons. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 41 

any other commodity of this kind : — the second rank 
must possess, in like manner, a yearly revenue of 
three hundred measures. These two were exempt 
from service on shipboard, and in the infantry; but 
they were bound to keep a horse for the service of 
the public ; and, within the age of military service, 
to serve personally in the cavalry. Hence they had 
the title of Hippeis, Horsemen, or, as the word is 
often translated, Knights. The third rank, called 
Zeugites, were of persons whose lands produced 
two hundred measures, but less than three hundred. 
These were bound to serve in the infantry, among 
the heavy armed, and to be provided with complete 
arms for the purpose. The rest of the citizens, not 
possessed of lands yielding two hundred measures, 
were comprehended under the name of Thetes. 
These also were bound to military service; and if 
provided with sufficient armor, might increase the 
force of the heavy armed ; if not, they served among 
the light armed and on board the fleet.* The offices 
of the state could only be filled by those of the three 
first classes, but all the four had a voice in the elec- 
tion of magistrates, in the decision of criminal cases 
as jurors — and in the general assembly of the peo- 1 
pie. The highest court was that of Areopagus : it 
consisted of all those who had passed through the 
office of archon with credit. Next to that was the 
senate, or council, as it is generally called : chosen by 
lot from the difl"erent wards or tribes of Attica : at first, 
when they were four, an hundred from each ; after- 
wards, when Cleisthenes divided the country afresh 
into ten wards, fifty were chosen from each, making 
up five hundred whose characters were required to 
be such as would bear a strict scrutiny, which was 

* Mitford's Hist, of Greece; Chap. v. Sect. 5. 
4 



42 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

instituted previous to their admission : a law which 
tells of a still simple state of manners. In this 
council the business was prepared for the general 
assembly of the people, whose consent was needful 
to the enactment of any new law. Besides these 
there were regular courts of judicature, and judges 
likewise made their circuits through the different dis- 
tricts, to administer the laws without giving plaintiffs 
the trouble of coming to Athens. 

Slavery was continued unmodified; and therein 
the code of Solon falls far behind that of Moses, 
which, in an earlier age, and among a less civilized 
people, had considerably ameliorated the condition 
of the captive. In barbarous times, the granting the 
vanquished his life was considered as an act of 
mercy, and the life thus granted was held thencefor- 
ward to belong to the victor : the necessity of per- 
sonal service in war, often caused the cultivation of 
the land to be neglected ; it seemed natural, therefore, 
to employ captives in remedying the evils of the 
war, by bringing the neglected soil into fertility ; and 
the system, once begun, was too convenient to be 
abandoned. Thus a state of society sprung up, 
which we can scarcely comprehend, and which put 
the great mass of the people beyond the pale of the 
law. Both in Athens and Sparta, the slaves greatly 
outnumbered the freemen. But such a state of things 
carries in it the seeds of decay; the free citizens 
learn to despise honest industry, and to practice op- 
pression ; the moral feeling becomes depraved, and 
the beneficial effect of independence on the human 
character is lost amid the license of tyranny. 

It has been often and well remarked, that the de- 
gree of civilization among any people may be judged 
from the condition of its women. Endued with less 
of physical strength, that sex can only assume its 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 43 

due place where the powers of the mind are more 
honored than those of the body ; and if we are to 
assume this as a criterion, we must place Athens 
low in the scale. The laws of Solon forbid a man 
to sell a daughter or a sister unless she shall have 
been guilty of unchastity : thus it is evident that the 
whole sex was viewed in the light of domestic slaves, 
and their injuries were noticed in the law, only in 
the proportion that it affected him whose property 
they were considered to be. Thus an adulterer was 
punished with death, while he who committed vio- 
lence on a free woman, while single, was subjected 
only to a paltry fine.* The degraded state in which 
Solon found and left that sex, led to a deprava- 
tion of manners in Athens, and in the states of 
Greece generally, which, happily, has no parallel in 
modern times. It would be a relief to pass over so 
disgusting a subject in total silence, but as, even in 
our own days, there are some who shut their eyes 
to the evil effect on society resulting from the degra- 
dation of one half of it, there may be some advan- 
tage in bringing forward an extreme case, to show 
that the deficiency in principles of justice which 
leads to the denial of equal rights to the one sex, 
very soon leads also to the oppression of the other. 
The next in the list of the honored of Greece is 
Cheilon of Lacedaemon, one of the Ephori of that 
state. We have nothing left of his but a few moral 
sentences, and the testimony of those who have re- 
ported them, that his life was in full conformity with 
his precepts. Among these the injunction, " Not to 
slander our neighbors — to be more ready to, share 
the misfortunes than the prosperity of our friends — 
to keep watch over ourselves — to suffer harm rather 

* Plutarch in Vita Solonis. 



44 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 



than take a dishonest gain — to be meek when in 
power — to bear injuries patiently-— to seek peace — 
to honor age — to obey the laws," are such as an 
Apostle might give, and an Apostle practice. He 
died as he had lived, honored and happy ; in the em- 
brace of his son, who had just been crowned victor 
in one of the Olympic games,* exhausted, it is said, 
by old age and joy; and has left a fame behind him 
which the best might envy, for it is the fame of quiet, 
peaceful virtue, unstained by blood, even in a barba- 
rous age. 

PiTTACus of Mitylene, the metropolis of the island 
of Lesbos, is also reckoned among the sages of 
Greece; but his name must stand far behind that of 
Cheilon. His manhood was signalized by the as- 
sassination of the then tyrant, or ruler of Lesbos. He 
himself assumed the government, and conducted it 
well for ten years ;t during which he enacted salutary 
laws, and at the end of that period, being required 
by the citizens to descend from his eminence, he did 
so with a good grace, and lived ten years longer, in 
complete privacy. One or two of his sayings are 
remarkable : — " Do not speak evil of your friend, nor 
even of your enemy — the gods cannot contend with 
Destiny — it is difficult to be worthy." And then 
follows what doubtless, if he deserved the name his 
countrymen gave him, he must have deeply felt — 
" Victories should be won without blood," — and with 
this sad acknowledgment on his part, that his great- 
ness stood on a false foundation, we will take our 
leave of Pittacus — great /or his time, but not beyond 
his time. 



* Diog. Laert. lib. i. % 72. 

t Aristoteles quotes the poet Alcaeus to show that Pittacus 
exercised his power tyrannically. Polit. lib. iii. c. 10. 



b 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 45 



Bias of Priene also received the tripod. One of 

his apothegms is, " Speak of the gods as they are," 
a sentence which implies much ; and he inculcated 
humility, by enjoining, " Whatever thou dost of good, 
refer it to the gods." His death was patriarchal : for, 
having undertaken the defence of a friend before the 
tribunal, on finishing his speech he sat down in ap- 
parent weariness, and rested his head on the bosom 
of his daughter's son, who was there. The adver- 
sary's advocate replied ; judgment was pronounced 
in favor of the friend of Bias, and the court being 
dissolved, the old man, when they tried to rouse him, 
was found dead in the lap of his grandson : so peace- 
ably had his spirit fled that none had perceived it.* 
Cleobulus, another of the seven, was, according 
to the phrase of the time, tyrant, i. e. ruler of Lindos, 
a town of Rhodes, and yielded in no point to his 
illustrious friends. He had visited Egypt in quest 
of science, and had profited by his travels ; for his 
government of the small community he ruled over 
was just and wise ; and he, and his no less accom- 
plished daughter, are celebrated for the gentle virtues 
they displayed in their elevated rank.t The writings 
and learning of this princess are celebrated by ancient 
authors, but none of them have reached us. The 
sayings of Cleobulus accord with his character : — 
" Do good to your friends that their friendship may 
be strengthened, to your enemies that they may be- 
come friends : — let your daughters when you give 
them in marriage, though girls in age, be women in 
understanding," "by which," says the writer of his 
life with a laughable astonishment, " he implies that 

* Diog. Laert. I. i. ^ 84. 

t Cleobulina was wont to wash the feet of her father's guests 
with her own hands. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1 iv. c. 19. 



46 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

even girls should be instructed."* " Be more eager 
to hear than to speak: — avoid injustice: — ^bridle the 
love of pleasure : — do violence to no man : — instruct 
your children : — keep up no enmities." 

Periander, the son and successor of Cypselus, 
tyrant of Corinth, has by some been placed among 
the wise seven, though his claim is very questiona- 
ble, except in so far as he was a patron of learning. 
He appears to have been on intimate terms with 
most of the sages of his times, and if he was by them 
complimented with the tripod, it was probably but a 
compliment. 

Pherecydes has also been named by some, as 
numbered among the seven sages of Greece, though 
it is hardly certain that he was of Grecian birth. He 
is said to have asserted the immortality of the soul,t 
and if -^lian is to be credited, was a hardy con- 
temner of the superstitions of his time. His works 
are lost, and he is chiefly remembered as the first 
writer of prose, and the instructor of a far greater 
man, whose commanding mind left its impress for 
ages on the countries where he taught. This man 
was Pythagoras. 

Those who now visit Calabria would scarcely 
suppose, from the present appearance of the country, 
that it was once the seat of philosophy, and of luxury. 
In fact, Magna Graecia, — for its numerous Greek 
colonies won it that name in ancient times, — has 
scarcely anything left to attract the traveler ; and 
there is nothing to remind us of its former glories 
but here and there a village whose inhabitants still 
retain the language of their forefathers.! But in the 

* Ti'iog. Laert. lib. i. "j. 91. 

t Cic. Tusc. Quffist. 1. . c. 16. 

t Some years back, when traveling in that country, I was as- 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 47 

days which I am now describing, the southern extre- 
mity, just above Cape Spartivento, was occupied by 
the Locrians, whose lawgiver, Zaleucus, is still cele- 
brated : a little higher, bordering on the now Gulf of 
Tarento, was situated the city of Sybaris, so famed 
for the luxury and effeminacy of its inhabitants ; 
and between these two, not far from the present 
Capo delle Colonne, was placed Crotona, where, 
after traveling over the larger part of the civilized 
world, Pythagoras established his school of philo- 
sophy. 

It matters little where a man was born whose fame 
identifies him with the progress of the human mind 
in general : most, however, agree that Pythagoras 
was a Samian, and that his birth occurred either 
about 586 or 568 b. c, a difference of date quite un- 
important to the present purpose. His early history 
is involved in much obscurity, but it seems allowed 
on all hands, that, at some period of his life, he tra- 
veled into every country which was likely to afford 
him knowledge : indeed, that this was the chief 
purpose of his life, may be gathered from the reply 
he made when asked what his profession was. It 
was at once modest and expressive : " I am a lover 
of knowledge,"* said he; and the distinction Avas 
afterwards adopted by all who devoted their time to 
science. 

Having matured his understanding by this careful 
cultivation, he began to apply it to the benefit of his 
fellow-men, and opened a school of philosophy at 

sured that there were still three or four villages where the an- 
cient Greek was yet spoken by the inhabitants. The difficulties 
of the journey, and the time it would have taken, prevented me 
from going thither to verify this curious fact. 

* <l)tXoVo<f>o?. The sages of Greece had hitherto been termed 
2o<}>ot, wise men ; Pythagoras modestly placed himself below 
them in terming himself only p/iiZosop/ios, a lover of wisdom. 



48 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

Crotona, in Magna Graecia. Thousands of both 
sexes, and of all ages, flocked to hear him, and the 
reform of manners consequent upon the moral les- 
sons of the teacher, was extraordinary.* It must 
remain a matter of deep regret, that the great prin- 
ciples of his philosophy, which influenced his hear- 
ers, as truth alone can influence, have not come 
down to us in his own words ; for it is only from a 
few scattered notices in later authors, who scarcely 
understood his full meaning, that we can now guess 
at them even. The command he acquired over the 
minds of the Crotonians was used in promoting 
their political, as well as moral well being ; when, 
indeed, were they ever separated? Crotona, under 
the rule of a council of three hundred, all imbued 
with his principles, quickly rose to greatness ; and 
during forty years enjoyed unexampled prosperity. 
The new philosophical sect spread widely in the sur- 
rounding countries, and we soon find Pythagoreans 
dispersed, not only over Italy and Sicily, but in the 
islands and coasts of Greece; but at Crotona, as 
elsewhere, prosperity engendered its evils; the state 
engaged in a contest with, and conquered Sybaris : 
the people clamored for an equal division of the con- 
quered lands ; the demand was resisted, and Pytha- 
goras and his disciples were banished. The phi- 
losopher died soon after at Metapontum, another 
city of Magna Graecia, and Crotona suffered the 
usual penalty of folly, in the decay of its greatness. 
The discipline of Pythagoras extended itself not 
only to the moral conduct, but to the regulation of 
dress, of meats and drinks ; and a resemblance to 
the laws of Moses in one or two of his injunctions, 

* For a longer account of the life of this great man^ see Gil- 
lies' Hist, of Greece, chap. xi. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 49 

leads to the conjecture, that in his various researches 
he had not neglected to study this code also, which, 
from the intercourse between Egypt and Judea, 
must have been well known in the former country. 
No animal not fit to be used in sacrifice was to be 
eaten by his disciples ; and they were commanded, 
when engaged in any reiglious rite, to wear clean 
white garments. Silence, modesty, temperance, and 
brotherly love, were enjoined ; and, — among the 
candidates for initiation into the deeper mysteries of 
his doctrine, — a community of goods ; the funds of 
the whole being administered by one of the mem- 
bers : — one of the first instances on record of a col- 
legiate establishment. A probation of five years 
was expected from his pupils, after which they were 
instructed in the meaning of the enigmatical sayings, 
in which, like Orpheus, he involved much of his 
doctrine. His wife Theano, worthy of such a hus- 
band, not only shared his labors during his life, but 
continued the philosophical school after his death : 
she is said to have written some works, now lost. 
Many extraordinary fables are related of Pythagoras, 
which are so incompatible with the character of the 
man, that they may safely be rejected: — thus, he is 
said to have afiirmed himself to be the son of Mer- 
cury, who offering him any boon short of immortali- 
ty, he asked that of memory, and, accordingly, pro- 
fessed to recollect the having passed through various 
bodies. On another occasion he is said to have 
feigned a descent to the infernal regions.* These 
tales probably deserve the same credit as the story 
of his golden thigh. 

Unfortunately, as has been already observed, we 
have no writings either of the great teacher himself, 

* Diog. Laert. in vita Pythag. 



50 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

or his no less gifted wife, from which to gather their 
doctrines ; they are, therefore, to be collected only 
from the reports of disciples. In astronomy, he is 
thought to have held the same opinion as was after- 
wards promulgated by his pupil, Philolaus of Cro- 
tona, who taught that a globe of fire, — the sun, — 
occupied the centre of the system, and that round it 
the other planets revolved. That the earth had a 
movement on its own axis, and that the revolution 
made day and night, and gave an apparent motion to 
the stars. That the earth itself was a spheroid, 
poised in the air ; and that the moon and other plan- 
ets were habitable globes like our own. A fanciful 
comparison of the seven primary planets to musical 
instruments, formed a part of the Pythagorean doc- 
ti'ine ; and hence was said to arise that music of the 
spheres which the ancients were fond of imagining.* 
Like Thales, he conceived all matter to consist of 
certain indefinitely small bodies, incapable of fur- 
ther division, which, from that quality, were called 
atoms, i. e., indivisible bodies; and that by a certain 
numerical arrangement,! these atoms formed fire, 
earth, water, and air; but that by altering this ar- 
rangement, air might become water, and water air, 
&LC. That when atoms of fire, i. e., heat, were in- 
troduced into water, it became fluid from the separa- 
tion of its particles ; but that fire being of a lighter 
nature, had a tendency to escape into the surround- 
ing air, which thus either occupying more space, or 
becoming more dense, by the introduction of extra- 
neous matter, exerted a pressure on the water, and 
squeezed out, as it were, the remaining particles of 

* See Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil, pars ii. lib. ii. c. 10. 
t "Pythagorei ex numeris et mathematicorum initiis pro- 
fiscisci volunt omnia." Cic. Acad. 1. i. c. 37. 



GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES, 51 

fire, until it became solid.* It would be neither pos- 
sible nor profitable in this small treatise to follow 
out these speculations, so imperfectly handed down 
to us : we may consider them probably, as among 
those first glimmerings of truth, which great minds 
see in the distance, though they cannot quite reach 
them : but whilst raising a statue to Dalton for his 
proved theory of definite proportions, we should not 
altogether forget Pythagoras, who twenty-four cen- 
turies earlier, would probably have worked it out, 
had his age been less immeasurably behind him. 

In theology, his opinions are not less worthy of 
remark. "The One Deity is the source of all 
things ; his form, light ; his essence, truth ; he is the 
giver of good to those who love him, and, as such, 
to be worshiped : he is the soul of all things, per- 
vading and maintaining the universe. "t " The souls 
of men exist after the death of the body : all space is 
full of them,J and they are worthy to receive honor 

* Plato Dial. Timaeus. This is little else than the doctrine of 
latent heat. It will probably be found that both are wrong, and 
that heat is not a substance : but at any rate, modern science 
has not found it easy to drive Pythagoras from his position, with 
regard to its mode of operation. 

t It is impossible to read these sublime notions of the Deity 
without comparing them with those of the Hebrew prophets : 
and when we recollect that Pythagoras was the cotemporary 
of Cyrus; that he visited Egypt for the express purpose of col- 
lecting knowledge, and, as some say, Babylon also, and that 
the events of the time must have drawn attention to the Jewish 
Scriptures, we may guess with some degree of probability 
whence they were drawn. 

X According to Jamblicus, he divided unseen intelligences 
into inferior gods, daemons, i. e. souls of dead men, and heroes : 
but Jamblicus did not write till the fourth century after Christ ; 
and as this doctrine implies a contradiction which Pythagoras 
would scarcely have been guilty of, I am inclined to think it has 
been misunderstood. In a system where the One Deity is the 
soul of all things, pervading and maintaining the universe, in- 
ferior gods would not find place. His doctrine was, doubtless, 



52 GREECE UNDER ITS SAGES. 

and praise when their course in this life has been 
good and virtuous : — the soul strengthens its holy 
dispositions by the exercise of devotion: — know- 
ledge should be sought as the means of approaching 
the nature and felicity of the Deity." The lofty 
spiritualism and pure morality of this system long 
influenced the world; and though the disciples of 
Pythagoras, like all others who oppose the reigning 
vices of the age, were persecuted after a time, and 
driven from Crotona, this did but spread his philo- 
sophy more widely. Whether the doctrines of this 
great man were derived from the countries he visit- 
ed, or from the depths of his own mind, must re- 
main uncertain: he stands there on the very con- 
fines of the darkness of remote ages, like a bright 
star, whose splendor in its own sphere we can only 
guess at from the light which it conveys to our far 
distant orb. 



that of Orpheus, and like it, was misinterpreted in after times. 
Daemons and heroes are the same thing, i. e., immortalized 



III. 

IONIA. 

FROM 700 B. C. TO 428 B. C. 

Whilst Athens under the laws of Solon, and the 
judiciousrule of itsmild "tyrants,"* had been silently, 
but rapidly advancing in science and arts, the fortunes 
of Ionia had been various. Within three centuries 
from their first establishment in this province, the Gre- 
cian colonies had risen to opulence by their commerce, 
and skill in the arts. Miletus, Colophon, and Pho- 
caea, especially, shone forth amid a barbarous age as 
the seats of luxury and taste ; their commerce Avith 
Egypt both enriched and enlightened them, and 
probably laid the foundation of that philosophic 
school which still sheds a lingering glory over the 
ruins of that once happy land. But in proportion 
as the cities of Ionia, and their dependencies, grew 
in riches and splendor, they became objects of notice 
to the nations around them, and after some unsuc- 
cessful contests, they appear, for the most part, to 
have fallen under the dominion of the powerful kings 
of Lydia. When the great struggle for the empire of 
Asia began, between Cyrus and Croesus, the alliance of 
the Grecian cities of Ionia was sought by the former ; 
but at that time they remained faithful to the Lydian 
monarch. After his defeat, they endeavored to make 
terms with the conqueror, but it was too late : Mi- 
letus only was admitted to treat ; the others, in de- 
spair, sought assistance from Greece, and Sparta 

* Peisistratus and Hipparchus. 



54 IONIA. 

was already fitting out an armament, when the rapid 
advance of the Persian generals rendered the succor 
useless. Priene was captured, the inhabitants sold 
for slaves, and the surrounding country given up to 
the soldiery. Phocaea and Teos, warned by the 
fate of Priene, preferred exile to slavery, and em- 
barking on board their fleet, with their families and 
effects,* left an empty city to the invaders. The 
other towns, after an ineffectual resistance, submitted 
to the conqueror on his own terms, and as the greater 
part of the Persian force was then employed else- 
where, these terms were not severe. Under the do- 
minion of Persia the Ionian cities again rose to opu- 
lence, and were governed, for the most part, by rulers 
of their own, subject only to the supremacy of" the 
Great King." A love of freedom, nevertheless, still 
lingered among them, which made them unwilling 
subjects ; and Darius, the successor of Cambyses, 
entertaining some suspicion of Histiaeus, tyrant of 
Miletus, sent for him to Susa under pretence of ask- 
ing his advice on points of government, and kept him 
there in a sort of honorable confinement.! The wily 
Greek saw through the pretext, and, being, deter- 
mined to get free at any hazard, secretly sent to his 
nephew, Aristagoras, to urge him to revolt, hoping 
that, in this case, he should himself be sent to quiet 
the people. Aristagoras was already involved in a 
disagreement with the Persian authorities when the 
message arrived; and, accordingly, reckless of con- 
sequences, he called the people together, made a 
public renunciation of the sovereignty on the part of 
himself and his uncle, and at once raised the stand- 
ard of independence. This done, not being mad 

* Marseilles was founded by the fugitive Phocaeans. 
t Herod. 1. v. c. 24. 



IONIA. 5S 

enough to suppose they could alone resist the 
might of Persia, he departed to Greece in order to 
obtain succor from the parent states. 

Meantime the Athenians had been engaged in a 
contest with the Lacedaemonians, in defence of their 
liberties, and alarmed at having drawn upon them- 
selves the resentment of a state which had taken 
such fearful vengeance on the Messenians, they sent 
ambassadors to Artaphernes, the brother of Darius, 
at Sardis, to ask the protection of the Persian mo- 
narch. Artaphernes having inquired where this 
hitherto unknown state was to be found, briefly re- 
plied, that if they brought earth and water, the known 
tokens of vassalage, to Darius, they might be admit- 
ted to his protection ; if not, they had better depart. 
The ambassadors, impressed only with the danger 
from the arms of Sparta, accepted the humiliating 
terms. Their conduct was severely reprobated at 
their return, but this, probably, Artaphernes never 
knew. Shortly after this, Hippias, the son of Pei- 
sistratus, who had in vain sought assistance among 
the Grecian states, arrived at the residence of Arta- 
phernes. He had allied himself by marriage with 
the tyrant of Lampsacus, who had considerable in- 
terest at the court of Persia ; and he thus met with a 
ready hearing, and the supposed vassals of the Great 
King were commanded to receive back their prince. 
At the moment when the indignation excited among 
the Athenians by this haughty mandate, was at its 
height, Aristagoras, who had been unsuccessful with 
the Spartans, arrived at Athens. His artful recom- 
mendations were well seconded by the resentment of 
the people, and an armament in aid of the lonians 
was immediately voted and equipped. With their 
aid, Sardis was taken and burnt, but the force of the 
confederates being too small to retain their conquest, 



56 IONIA. 

it had no other effect than that of incensing Darius* 
to the greatest possible degree, by what appeared to 
him an act of wanton piracy. 

Such was the beginning of that Persian war whose 
events have lived in the recollection and admiration 
of mankind during nearly twenty-four centuries, and 
probably will continue to do so to the end of time : 
for as long as the worth of freedom is known, as 
long as disinterestedness and self-devotion find any 
sympathy in the human heart, so long must the bay 
of Salamis, and the pass of Thermopylae be remem- 
bered and hallowed. 

The storm rolled first over Miletus : dissensions 
among the allies had left it without the expected 
succor from other states, and, in the sixth year of the 
revolt, this flourishing city was taken and burnt, its 
citizens massacred, and its women and children car- 
ried into slavery .t All the principal cities of Ionia, 
as well on the main land as in the islands, with the 
exception of Samos, which made a timely submis- 
sion, shared the same fate. The next act of the 
tragedy was to be laid in Greece itself. After re- 
ducing all the smaller insular states, an army of an 
hundred thousand infantry, besides cavalry, was dis- 
embarked, under the guidance of Hippias, on the 
Marathonian shore, only thirty miles from Athens 
itself; but the age had made its men ; though the 
force which the Athenians could bring into the field 

* He commanded an attendant to keep the insult in his me- 
mory, by exclaiming every day to him, as he sat at dinner, " Re- 
member the Athenians." 

t Herod. 1. vi. c. 19. The taking of Miletus having been 
brought on the stage at Athens, by Phrynichus, the dramatic 
poet, the whole audience burst into tears ; and so deeply were 
they affected, that a decree was passed, forbidding any future 
representation of this woful spectacle, under pain of a heavy 
fine. 



IONIA. 57 

was far short of the host of Persia, they had Mil- 
tiades ; they had Aristides, great enough to divest 
himself of command, and induce the other generals 
in chief to do the same, in order that the military 
skill of his colleague might meet with no obstacle ; 
and they had stout hearts and strong arms to strike 
for their hearths and homes ; — but who is there that 
now needs to be told the result of the fight at Ma- 
rathon ? 

The discomfited Persians retreated to their ships, 
and this decisive day purchased for the Athenians 
ten years respite from the vengeance of the oflfended 
monarch ; during which time their fleet was employed 
in punishing the island states, which in their opinion 
had submitted too readily to the Persians. Miltiades 
at first had the command, and being unsuccessful at 
Naxos, at his return, wounded and dying, he was 
impeached and condemned to a heavy fine, or, as 
some say, to death, — an instance of strange ingrati- 
tude, which unfortunately for the fame of Athens, 
was not without its after parallels. 

In order to explain much of what follows, it will 
be needful to recollect that all through Greece, as 
must be the case in every country where civilization 
is rapidly advancing, the inhabitants were divided 
into two great factions ; the aristocratical, and the 
democratical, or as we now more familiarly term 
them, the conservative party, and that of the move- 
ment. Sparta, whose institutions admitted of no 
change, was at the head of the conservative, or aris- 
tocratic party; Athens, which ever since the death 
of Codrus, had been verging more and more towards 
popular government, was the leader of the demo- 
cratical movement. The descendants of Codrus, still 
powerful though deprived of the sovereignty, had been 
the indefatigable opponents of Peisistratus, and having 



58 IONIA. 

rid themselves of his family, would brook no other 
rival near the throne. Miltiades had married a Thra- 
cian princess, and was himself the independent sove- 
reign of a part of the Thracian Chersonesus ; and their 
jealousy probably saw in him another Peisistratus, 
whom it was needful to crush. Xanthippus, who had 
married the niece of Cleisthenes, the lineal descendant 
of Alcmson, the last archon of the family of Codrus, 
conducted the prosecution of the great general, whose 
death from the consequence of his bodily and mental 
wounds, delivered the Alcmseonidae from a rival they 
feared, but left a dark blot on the Athenian name 
which no time can efface. 

Meantime the gathering storm swept onward from 
the east: Xerxes had succeeded to his father's ha- 
tred of Athens, and at last, after subduing all other 
opposition, he crossed the Hellespont, and prepared 
to chastise the presumptuous state which had braved 
his power. But again the great occasion found men 
equal to it. A handful of Spartans, under their 
heroic king Leonidas, defended the pass of Ther- 
mopylae against the whole force of Persia for three 
days, and when at last, by the treachery of a Greek, 
a body of the enemy was conducted over the moun- 
tains, so as to take them in the rear, they died amid 
heaps of the best troops of the invading force, slain 
by their brave despair. The victory of Xerxes cost 
him dear; and though the noble self-devotion of that 
gallant band failed to arrest his progress, it taught his 
hosts to dread the obstinate valor of free men, de- 
fending all that was dear to them in life, and paved 
the way for the future triumphs of the Grecian arms. 
The Athenians, hopeless now of defending their city, 
by a no less brave resolve, abandoned their property 
and their homes to the fury of their enemies ; and 
having placed their wives and children in safety, em- 



IONIA. 59 

barked on board their fleet, under the command of 
Themistocles, and with the other naval forces of 
Greece, met the Persian fleet off" Salamis, in a con- 
flict not less obstinate, but more fortunate, than that 
of Thermopylae. Xerxes fled discomfited from the 
scene of his intended triumph, and in the ensuing 
summer, the two great battles of Plataa and Mycale, 
fought on the same glorious day, delivered Greece 
for ever from the dread of the Persian arms. 

It is pleasant to look on the bright side of human 
nature, and after the brave struggle just noticed, the 
mind longs to find Athens and Sparta, the two eyes 
of Greece, as they were appropriately termed, travel- 
ing hand in hand on their glorious career ; but this 
could not be. Difl'erent political institutions held 
them apart ; the high tone not unjusdy assumed by 
Athens, as the Savior of Greece, oflended the pride 
of other states, and dissensions broke out afresh. 
Faction resumed its sway at Athens as soon as the 
danger was over, and both Themistocles, and Cimon, 
the no less great son of the great Miltiades, in turn 
succumbed to the power of the opposite party. That 
class of the people which by the laws of Solon had 
been excluded from offices of state, after the termi- 
nation of the Persian invasion, claimed a share in 
the government which their swords had helped to 
re-establish : the claim was a plausible one, and a 
relaxation of the law was perhaps called for, under 
the altered circumstances of the country; but faction 
had again divided the greatest men of the republic. 
Themistocles and Aristides took opposite sides, and 
this latter, glad of an opportunity to curb the power 
of his rival by gaining the popular favor for his own 
party, in an evil hour granted the demand in its 
fullest extent. From thenceforward no qualification 
of property was required for any office of the state, 



60 IONIA. 

and it was too soon found that the hardy, uneducated 
demagogue, who could win the favor of the ignorant 
muhitude, who were unable to decide on his capa- 
city, might obtain power to ruin his country. The 
habits of the Athenian citizen, nevertheless, were 
not altered in a day ; the people who had been led 
by a Themistocles and a Cimon, could not stoop as 
yet to the guidance of a Cleon, and forty glorious 
years more are marked as the era of Pericles, a man 
not unworthy of the great names who had preceded 
him. During this time Athens arrived at the pinna- 
cle of its power : its edifices were rebuilt in a style 
which, even in its ruins, still claims our admiration: 
its sculpture remains unequaled: in poetry, in rhe- 
toric, in philosophy, it has directed the march of the 
human intellect through all succeeding generations. 
Ages have passed over, but Athens has had no rival; 
nor, though the pismire labors of myriads, perpetu- 
ated by the aid of the printing press, may carry 
science forward to greater accuracy of detail, will 
those master minds who first held the torch to 
guide us on our way, ever cease to excite our admi- 
ration. 

Such were the events amid which the philosophy 
of Greece was rudely cradled. Happily for man- 
kind, it is under this rough nurture that intellect de- 
velops itself the most vigorously ; and never has 
the world boasted a galaxy of greater names, than 
those which threw their lustre over the period which 
elapsed from the stormy rise of the Persian power, 
to its decline and final overthrow by the Macedonian 
arms. It has already been seen, that the wisdom 
for which Greece honored its sages, was at first 
chiefly moral and political ; the natural sciences were 
only added, as a sort of pastime, to what they con- 



IONIA. 61 

sidered the more important parts of a wise man's 
study. Of the seven, Thales and Solon alone gave 
any attention to natural philosophy, and even when 
their successors saw the immense field of knowledge 
spread before them, and began to cultivate it, they 
rarely quite disengaged themselves from politics. 
Plutarch makes it a reproach to Epicurus, even in 
his time, that he alone, of all the Greek philoso- 
phers, taught his disciples to stand aloof from poli- 
tics, and prefer a quiet obscurity to public charges 
and honors.* There will be need to recur hereafter 
to this peculiarity in the philosophy of Greece. 

While Pythagoras was spreading the light of 
science in Magna Graecia, and preaching at the same 
time a faith and morality which a Hebrew prophet 
would not have disavowed ; the school which Thales 
had founded at Miletus, was carried on by his friend 
and pupil Anaximander, and after him by Anaxi- 
MENES, a Milesian also, who appears to have escaped 
from the desolation of his native city, and to have 
returned thither when the danger was over. Gross 
errors in natural science have been imputed to these 
philosophers, too gross to be believed ; for who can 
imagine that the friend, or as some say, the relation 
of Thales, supposed eclipses to proceed from the 
casual shutting of a window in the sun or moon, 
through which the light at other times proceeded: 
or, that the cotemporary of Pythagoras, whose dis- 
ciples were spread over all Greece and Italy, could 
believe the earth to be an extended tabular surface, 
when the experience of every mariner of that com- 
mercial country would have told him the contrary. 
Probably in the fatal siege and capture of Miletus 
the greater number of pupils of this school perished ; 

* Plut. contra Koloten. 



625 IONIA. 

and those who in after times prosecuted Anaxagoras, 
the pupil of Anaximenes, for doubting the divine 
nature of the sun, we may well suppose paid little 
attention to the astronomical researches of this school 
of philosophy. 

It has been already seen that Thales held the 
opinion, that all matter consists of certain indefinitely 
small particles, and that its first form was water, out 
of which the Supreme Deity formed all things. 
Anaximander and Anaximenes both differed slightly 
from their master as to this first step in creation, 
Anaximander asserting that infinity, to aVteipov, was 
the source of all material things, from which worlds 
were constantly in a course of formation, and into 
which they were re-dissolved :* Anaximenes affirm- 
ing this infinity to be the air.f Both have been ac- 
cused of atheism by subsequent writers : but as 
Thales, the teacher of Anaximander, and Anaxagoras, 
the pupil of Anaximenes, both held a supreme Mind 
to be the plastic force by whose power the universe 
coheres, so we may justly conclude that their atheism 
consisted in the rejection of the popular superstitions, 
and that the sole difference between these masters 
of the Ionian school consisted in their notions as to 
the primitive form of matter ; a point of such mere 
speculation, as to involve no important consequence : 
for those who held the atomic theory of that age, 
considered, as we still do, on perhaps more decided 
proof, that water and air were but different modes of 
combination of the same material particles. Anaxi- 
mander is said to have attempted a map of the world, 
and to have constructed a sphere for that purpose. J 

* See Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil., Pars ii. lib. iii. c. 1. 

t Cic. Lucull. c. 37. See also Aristot. Metaph. 1. i. c. 3. 

X Diog. Laert. 



IONIA. 63 

He is likewise said to have been the first inventor 
of the gnomon, and to have constructed one at Lace- 
daemon.* He, like the rest of the philosophers of 
that time, appears to have held the doctrine of Or- 
pheus with regard to the omnipresence of the Deity : 
thus the heavenly bodies were to be considered di- 
vine, not in regard to their material atoms, but as 
being the seat of a part of the divine power by which 
they were ruled and maintained. 

Xenophanes, of Colophon, another city of Ionia, 
is distinguished as the founder of a fresh school of 
philosophy, differing in some points from that usually 
called the Ionic. When the Phocaeans fled from 
the arms of Cyrus, a part of them founded the town 
of Elea, or Velia, in Magna Graecia ; and as the most 
distinguished followers of the above-mentioned phi- 
losopher were citizens of this place, the sect was in 
consequence termed Eleatic. Xenophanes himself, 
like others of the lonians, appears to have fled from 
his native country to avoid the slavery with which 
they were threatened by the successes of Cyrus, and 
to have lived in great poverty in Sicily, where he 
obtained a scanty subsistence as a bard, singing his 
own compositions in Zancle and Catana. In these 
verses, he is said to have ridiculed the fables of 
Homer and Hesiod relative to the gods, and as the 
Pythagorean doctrines had spread largely in this 
region, his satires were likely to have been heard 
with approbation. 

Xenophanes appears to have possessed a mind of 
peculiar acuteness, which led him to feel dissatisfied 
with the loose mode of argument adopted in. the 
Ionic school : accordingly we find him grounding his 
opinions on a very strict course of reasoning. He as- 

* See Brucker as above. 



64 IONIA. 

sumes in the first place as an axiom, that something 
must have existed externally, because it is an absur- 
dity to suppose that anything could ever have come 
into existence, had there ever been a time when there 
was nothing.* Then, whatever is eternal must ne- 
cessarily be infinite, as it can have neither beginning 
nor end — but what is infinite must be One, since if 
there were more, one would set a limit to the other, 
which is inconsistent with infinity : — and what is 
essentially one, can have no difference of parts ; 
otherwise there might be a discretion, which would 
make many things instead of one. Moreover, what 
is eternal, infinite, and without distinction of parts, 
must be immovable and immutable, for there can be no 
place where it is not, therefore, it does not move ; nor 
can it be subject to change, for then it would at some 
time be what it was not before, which would be equi- 
valent to the creation of a new nature, a thing impos- 
sible where there is no more powerful cause existing. 
There is therefore. One eternal, infinite, immu- 
table Being, by whom all things consist, and this 
One Being is God; incorporeal, omnipresent.! 
He has nothing in common with man, either in form 
or mode of existence, — he hears all, sees all, but not 
by human senses: he is at once mind, wisdom, 
eternal existence. J 

The difierence between the Ionic and Pythagorean 
doctrine, and that of Xenophanes, appears to be this : 

Ik /unS'gvof . . Aristot. de Xenophani, which see for the opinions 
of this philosopher. 

t See Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil., pars ii. lib. ii. c. 11. 

X Diog. Laert. in vit. Xenophanias. This writer adds also, 
<' that the substance of God is spheroid ;" but Xenophanes was 
too close a reasoner to advance a contradiction, and Aristoteles 
does not charge it upon him, but upon Zeno Eleates : it is, there- 
fore, evident that on this point the biographer was mistaken. 



IONIA. 65 

— that while the former considered the material 
atoms of which all things are compounded, and the 
plastic power which called them into active exist- 
ence, as two separate principles, constituting as it 
were, the soul and body of the world, Xenophanes 
could not, in the strictness of his argument, allow 
any second principle, but at once refers all existence 
to the operation of that single Power, which alone 
exists necessarily. This controversy has continued 
to divide philosophers ever since, and will probably 
never be finished as long as the world lasts ; because 
no advance of science can ever give us perfect cog- 
nizance of the matter in question. With the per- 
verseness which always leads men to carry a con- 
troverted opinion to its utmost verge, the one party 
has denied the existence of any immaterial principle, 
— the other, that of any material substance, and both 
having a portion of truth mixed with their error, 
have found followers. In our time, Cabanis and 
Bishop Berkeley have been the most unshrinking 
representatives of the respective sects of materialists 
and idealists, or more properly, spiritualists. Ca- 
banis refuses to see in man, or in any material sub- 
stance, anything but the movement of material parts, 
consequent on the laws of matter ; and asserts that 
thus certain functions are executed ; but here common 
sense steps in, and decides that though he has given 
a good exposition of some of the phenomena of 
nature, he has not explained all ; and that, therefore, 
something more is wanting to his theory. Berkeley 
boldly denies the possibility of proving any material 
existence whatever ; all apparently external things 
2iYe perceived internally: the universe, therefore, is 
ah idea in the mind of God, reflected upon the mind 
of man as in a mirror, and there is no such thing as 
I matter at all. Common sense allows his argument, 
6 



66 IONIA. 

and laughs at it : and, notwithstanding all that has 
been urged on both sides, the bulk of mankind still 
persists in believing in immaterial as well as material 
existence.* As far as pure reasoning goes, the argu- 
ment of Xenophanes is complete; the physical 
studies of the Ionic and Pythagorean schools per- 
haps enabled them to add what they might consider 
an experimental proof of the eternity of matter; i. e., 
that through all its countless changes no atom is ever 
lost; but still this is nothing more than a presump- 
tion, and the argument of Xenophanes cannot be 
shaken : the manner, therefore, in which matter has 
its existence, will most likely remain an unsolved 
problem as long as we form part of a material uni- 
verse. 

The opinions of Xenophanes on physics have 
been strangely reported ; probably by persons who 
did not understand them ; for some of the notions 
imputed to him are too grossly improbable to have 
found favor with one so well capable of detecting 
false reasoning. He is said, for instance, to have 
taught that the stars were nothing but kindled exha- 
lations, which were quenched when they appeared 
to set, a fresh illumination taking place on the fol- 
lowing night. This, at a time when the periodical 
rising and setting of certain stars had already been 
noticed and recorded, is clearly an impossible de- 
gree of ignorance in a man of Xenophanes' rank in 
science, and must have been advanced by him solely 
of those meteors which are still entitled shooting or 
falling stars. Thus he is also said to have taught 
that there were many suns, which has been inter- 

* See, for a fuller examination of the subject, an Essay by M. 
JoufTroy, Du Spiritualisme et du Materialisme. Melanges Philo- 
sophiques, torn. i. 



IONIA. 67 

preted to mean that when any accident happened to 
one, the earth was presently supplied with another : 
it is a more probable conjecture that, as he taught 
that there were also an infinite number of worlds, 
he, like modern astronomers, considered the fixed 
stars to be suns, giving light to their respective sys- 
tems. These specimens of misrepresentation may 
suffice: litde is to be gathered from such reporters. 
Cicero, more exact in his information, tells us that 
Xenophanes believed the moon to be a habitable 
globe like our own:* and he is elsewhere said to 
have observed the fossil remains found bedded in 
rocks, and to have concluded from thence, that the 
earth must at some previous time have undergone 
notable revolutions, in which the existing race of 
beings had perished. 

Heracleitus, of Ephesus, though for a time ac- 
knowledged as the founder of a sect of philosophy, 
delighted so much in enigmatical expressions and 
mysterious concealment, that even his cotemporaries 
did not always understand him, and his successors 
still less. The dogma which is generally held to 
be especially his, is that fire is the origin of all 
things, guided by fate. According to Aristoteles, he 
considered that all nature was in constant movement, 
one power alone was permanent, and by it all was 
shaped and fashioned :t this power probably was the 
kfiapixevr]?, or fate, spoken of by other writers, who 
notice the philosophy of Heracleitus, and by what- 
ever name called, was none other than the One, 
Unerring, Supreme Will, or Deity, which the whole 
of the Ionian school acknowledged. It appears, 

* Cicero, Lucull. c. 39. 

"f £V ri §■£ /wovov vTrofXiMiiyy l^ a ravTo, Ttavra fxirao'^rifAari^ea-Qai 
ve<pvKev. Aristot. de Coelo, lib. iii. c. 1. 



68 IONIA. 

therefore, that this philosopher only made a slight 
variation in the previous Ionic theory, by putting 
fire in the room of water or air, as the first form in 
which matter existed. It is not impossible that the 
Magian doctrines,* which about that time were 
gaining a wider spread, might have had a share in 
influencing his views. He is said to have been 
offered the supreme rule of his native place, by his 
fellow-citizens, in order to the giving them a whole- 
some code of laws ; but disgusted by the profligacy 
which he saw around him, and thinking, perhaps, 
that such a step might give umbrage to the Persian 
governor, he refused the offer.t He derided the 
superstition of his countrymen without reserve, tell- 
ing them that they might as well pray to the stones 
of their houses, as to a stone image. J Some think 
that he was banished from Ephesus on this account: 
but the revolt of the Ionian cities, about this time, 
was a probable reason for his retirement to the 
mountains, where he lived as a hermit, weeping per- 
petually, it is said, over the miseries of human ex- 
istence ; which, indeed, were at that time carried to 
their height in the deplorable calamities of the fair- 
est part of Ionia. 

The philosophico-theological creed of those days 
appears to have been generally that of Orpheus, i. e., 
that a pervading intelligence animated all nature, and 
that the human soul was a portion of it: conse- 
quently, the blessedness of this latter consisted in a 
re-absorption into its divine original. The saying 
of Heracleitus, that " life was the burial of the soul, 
death, its deliverance from bondage," — indicates 

* The Magians, though called fire worshipers, merely hon- 
ored it as the visible representative of the divine power, 
t Diog. Laert. in vit. 
t Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 4. 



IONIA. 69 

such to have been his belief also. His learning was 
held in high esteem by his cotemporaries, and his 
name long kept its place among those of the most 
celebrated philosophers,* but as he gave no perma- 
nent tincture to the opinions of his age, and as, even 
then, he had the title of axotsivb^, i. e. obscure, it is 
needless to bestow a longer consideration on his 
doctrines. 

Parmenides, one of the most famous of the Eleatic 
sect, was the cotemporary of Heracleitus. Like 
most of the sages of old, he was at once philosopher, 
poet, and legislator, and in this latter capacity be- 
stowed on his native city so excellent a code of laws, 
that Plutarch assures us it was the practice, even 
down to his time, to require the officers of the city 
to swear when they entered upon their charge, that 
they would observe the laws and ordinances of 
Parmenides. In philosophy he appears to have 
endeavored to reconcile the tenets of Pythagoras 
and the Ionic school with those of Xenophanes. 
There are in nature, he said, two species of things ; 
the one variable and uncertain, which we view by 
our external senses and which is a subject of opinion 
only; the other, one and immutable, to be discovered 
only by our reason:! a doctrine in which logical 
reasoning, common sense, and observation are blend- 
ed, as was to be expected from so eminently prac- 
tical a man: it must remain, therefore, a matter of 
deep regret, that of all his writings, both on this sub- 
ject, and many others which he treated of,J only a 

* Plutarch ranks him with Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato 
as a moral teacher. 

t Plutarch cent. Koloten. 

X "He discoursed much," says Plutarch, "respecting the 
earth, and the heavens, the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 
and the creation (yevea-tv) of man; and has left nothing unnoticed, 



70 Ionia. 

very few disjointed fragments remain. His scholars, 
and Melissus especially, appear to have pushed his 
system to the extreme of idealism; asserting that 
nothirg really was generated or decayed, but merely 
appeared to us to be so.* 

One other less desirable celebrity has been acquired 
by Parmenides : that of having been the first to assert 
that the earth occupies the centre of the universe ; be- 
ing so equidistant from all parts, that it remains poised 
by an equal attraction on all sides. In one point of 
view this record is curious and interesting, as it shows 
that the force of gravitation was not unknown to the 
philosophers of that day. By what arguments Par- 
menides supported his new opinion we are unable 
now to tell : for the futile one afterwards drawn by 
Pliny the elder, from the equal length of night and 
day at the equinox, seems too slight a foundation for 
such a man as Parmenides to ground a system upon. 
Be that as it may, the error spread, and soon became 
go firmly rooted, that it remained the established 
creed in astronomy down to the days of Copernicus 
and Galileo. The only probable cause that can be 
assigned for so extraordinary a fact, is the desolation 
brought upon the civilized world by the Babylonian 
first, and then the Persian conquests. In the burning 
of cities and temples manuscripts perished: in the 
massacre or enslavement of the inhabitants of whole 
regions, those who might have handed down the 
learning of the preceding age were cut off; and when 
Athens arose from her ashes, and the cities of Ionia 
were again peopled, and Egypt revived under the 

for he was a man versed in physiology from of old, and has writ- 
ten his own observations, not those of others." Plut. cont. 
Kolot. 

* iiQev yctp ars yiyveaBai. <pas-iv, sts <p2rsi^effQat tuv ovTwy, aXXa 
fj(,ovov ^oxsh hfyiTv. De CceIo, lib. iii. c. 1. 



IONIA. 71 

rule of the Ptolemies, the science of past ages had 
to be discovered anew. Thanks to the printing 
press, the world has no reason to dread the recur- 
rence of such a calamity. 

The Eleatic sect ended with the disciples of Par- 
menides, for Leucippus, though a pupil of one of 
them, i. e., of Zeno Eleates, may be considered as 
the founder of a new school, rendered famous by the 
name of Democritus, and giving rise in part to a yet 
more famous sect, that of the Epicureans. We have 
already seen that Parmenides' physiological studies 
gave him a leaning towards the Pythagorean and 
Ionian theory of material atoms; that is, he allowed 
that there was in nature, besides the one eternal 
existence discovered by reason, something that our 
senses took cognizance of, though only as a matter of 
opinion. Leucippus, waiving the argument as to the 
Being which our reason takes cognizance of, attached 
himself to researches into the nature of what is 
obvious to our bodily senses. The universe accord- 
ing to him, consists of an infinite vacuum, and an 
infinite number of material atoms floating in it, which, 
by certain movements, and attraction towards each 
other, become conglomerated, and form the different 
bodies perceivable by our senses, and which from 
the same agencies are in a perpetual state of change. 
The efficient cause of these changes was, according 
to him, a certain necessity, the nature of which he 
did not explain.* There will be occasion hereafter 
to return to these tenets, when they are more deve- 
loped by Democritus and Epicurus: it is time now to 

* tivtti T6 . . . . Kara, Tivet aviyx.nv. Diog. Laert. in vit. Leucip. 
It has already been seen that this Necessity, or Fate, was ac- 
knowledged among the Greeks as the Supreme Deity, to whom 
both gods and men were subject. See Aristot. de Mundo, c. 7. 



72 IONIA. 

turn to the leader of the opposite school, Anaxago- 
RAS, of Clazomene. 

This philosopher, whose name has become famous 
as the instructor of Pericles and of Socrates, was 
born of noble and wealthy parents, about the time of 
the Ionian revolt; and early became a scholar of 
Anaximenes, the then head of the Ionic school. 
Possibly both might find themselves in the same 
place of refuge, and thus the young Anaxagoras ob- 
tained the advantage of Anaximenes' tuition sooner 
than he would otherwise have done ; for, many years 
after, when he returned to Clazomene, and saw his 
paternal inheritance lying desolate, he is reported to 
have said, — "But for this destruction I myself should 
have been lost."* — Though he is thought to have 
filled the chair of Anaximenes for a short period, the 
greater part of his life, after he had attained to man- 
hood, was spent at Athens, which he first visited in 
his twentieth year, at the very time when its brave 
citizens were betaking themselves to their wooden 
walls to preserve the liberty of Greece; and even 
Themistocles is said, during some part of his brilliant 
career, to have studied the lore of the young philoso- 
pher. It would seem that, after the day of Mycale 
and the subsequent successes of Cimon had freed 
Ionia from the dread of the Persian yoke, Anaxagoras 
returned to his country ; but after no long stay there, 
came back to Athens, where he is said to have spent 
thirty years. 

Anaxagoras saw before him the evils resulting from 
the system of mystery introduced by Orpheus, which, 
while it opened its truths only to the learned, left the 
vulgar a prey to the grossest fictions, and plunged 
them into both polytheism and idolatary ; he proba- 

* Val, Max. lib. viii, c. 7. r 



IONIA. '5'3 

bly saw too the fault of the Ionic doctrine generally, 
which so united the Divine Spirit with material na- 
ture, that it amounted almost to a deification of the 
latter, and he appears to have resolved to free his 
philosophy from both these faults. He, therefore, 
boldly faced the superstition of his time, declaring 
openly that Phcebus himself, the great Delphian god, 
was nothing more than a ball of glowing metal or 
rock, which transmitted its warmth to the earth ; and 
that the moon, the Diana of Greece, the Isis of Egypt, 
was nothing more than another habitable earth, with 
hills and valleys like our own. He taught that there 
was but One God, and that was the intelligent Mind 
which had given movement and consequent form to 
the material atoms of the universe, and which, though 
it pervaded and ordered all nature, was separate, and 
unmixed with any material substance.* 

Pericles, the great statesman of Athens, who, be- 
fore he became acquainted with Anaxagoras, had 
listened to the far more questionable doctrines of 
Zeno Eleates, soon became a convert of his teaching: 
the licentiousness and extravagant luxury which the 
plundered riches of Persia had cherished and main- 
tained, were already beginning to threaten the best 
interests of the state, and were deeply felt by Pericles 
himself, in the unhappy home thus created for him.t 
There was that in the doctrine of Anaxagoras, which 
was of power to reform the public morals, and fix 
the government on a surer foundation ; and Pericles 
and his friends, with a noble enthusiasm, appear to 
have become the apostles of the new philosophy, 

* Aristot. Metaph. 1. i. c. 3. 

t The wise economy introduced by him into his house ex- 
penses was bitterly complained of by his first wife, and his sons 
by her. See Plutarch's life of this statesman. 
■ 7 



74 IONIA. 

new at least in the simple and bold avowal of its 
principles. 

About this time, too, Anaxagoras found another and 
powerful auxiliary in the person of one of the most 
famed and the most maligned of all the characters of 
antiquity. Aspasia, the daughter of Axiochus, a 
Milesian, made her appearance at Athens as a teacher 
of rhetoric and politics.* Her glowing eloquence, 
her talents, her youth, her extraordinary beauty, won 
upon all hearts ; and the Athenians, who till then had 
thought a woman capable of nothing but the superin- 
tendence of the loom and the storehouse ; who con- 
sidered a wife merely as a household drudge, and 
could not suppose that rational intercourse and friend- 
ship with a female were possible; suddenly saw them- 
selves obliged to bow before female intellect, and 
learned the eloquence which was to captivate the 
multitude, and the arts by which they were to wield 
the power of the state, from female lips. The most 
distinguished characters in Athens attended her lec- 

* Aspasia has been stigmatized as a courtesan, a charge not 
very compatible with a life so devoted to learning as to have 
made her an able teacher of the above sciences at a very early 
age. When we recollect, too, that the severely virtuous Pericles 
made her his wife; that their only son, though illegitimate by 
the laws of Athens because his mother was a foreigner, must, 
from his age, have been born some time after their marriage ; 
and that Socrates, in after times, carried the wives and daugh- 
ters of his friends to profit by her conversation and instruc- 
tion ; we may well believe that the reproaches so plentifully 
cast upon her, were but the calumnies of a faction, invented for 
a political purpose. Those really known to be courtesans, Lais 
for instance, or Theodota mentioned by Xenophon, Mem. lib. iii. 
c. 11, made no pretensions to philosophy : but on the other hand, 
those who did study philosophy, and spurned the silly eti- 
quettes of Grecian society, were thus stigmatized by the impure 
and the envious ; and later writers have repeated the charge 
without examination. 



IONIA. 75 

lures ; Pericles,* then in almost the height of his 
power, and Socrates just entering upon life, alike 
sought her instruction. She herself embraced the opi- 
nions of Anaxagoras, if, indeed, she had not already 
been trained in his school at Miletus, and appears to 
have co-operated with all her power in the project 
of reforming the religious creed, as well as the man- 
ners, of the country. Euripides, the tragic poet, 
enlisted himself in the same cause, and the new sect 
spread so rapidly as to alarm the opposite party. 
The conservatives of Athens dreaded, or affected to 
dread, the change of manners likely to be introduced 
by the new system ;t and a decree was procured, 
that those who disputed the existence of the gods, 
or broached new opinions respecting celestial ap- 
pearances, should be tried before an assembly of the 
people. The comic poets, whose gross ribaldry had 
always been discouraged by Pericles, were the ready 
tools in the hands of the opposite faction ; and after 
a series of both personal and political libels, aimed 
at the great statesman, the master-stroke was at- 
tempted, by attacking his private friend no less than 

* Pericles' famous funeral elation for the slain at Samos, is 
said to have been composed by Aspasia. See Plato. Menex. 
She is said also to have been the adviser of that expedition; a 
stroke of policy questioned by some, but which, by establishing 
the popular party in Samos, gained a new ally for Athens. 

t At the time when this law was proposed, the religious fes- 
tivals, sacrifices, &c., supplied the indigent citizens with a con- 
siderable part of their maintenance. Even the theatrical enter- 
tainments, which the Athenians were so passionately fond of, 
,were exhibited at a religious festival, i. e. the Dionysia, or feast 
of Bacchus; and a gratuity was distributed to the people on that 
occasion. It was easy, therefore, to rouse them to maintain 
those rites which furnished them with so large a part of their 
subsistence. The expense which this entailed upon the state, 
became at last so ruinous, that within fifty years after, we find 
Demosthenes complaining that the money which should have 
maintained their fleet and troops, was wasted in feasts and plays. 






76 IONIA. 

himself with a series of prosecutions. Phidias, the 
still unrivaled architect and sculptor, was thrown 
into prison on frivolous pretences : Pericles himself 
v/as called on to give an account of his administra- 
tion, in terms that implied a reproach, and Anaxa- 
goras and Aspasia were prosecuted under the new 
law, for impiety. A farther ridiculous charge was 
added against Aspasia, as it had been against Phi- 
dias, of keeping free women in her house for the 
private pleasure of her great pupil : a charge, which 
the character given of Pericles by the great cotem- 
porary historian of Greece, sufficiently disproves, 
even if the commonest principles of human nature 
had not sufficiently convinced us already, that a 
woman engaged in such traffic could never have 
been the confidante and guide of the great and wise 
minister of Athens. But it is scarcely indulging a 
conjecture to suppose that the scheme for the reform 
of religion and manners, embraced that of restoring 
women to such a position in society, as should curb 
the fearful depravation which so unblushingly pre- 
vailed : and the young women of free or noble birth 
whom Aspasia entertained in her house, were no 
doubt her pupils ; but in a nobler science than the 
gross minds of her accusers could understand. The 
stepping beyond the walls of the Gynaeceum and 
mixing in general society, were things as much pro- 
scribed by the customs of ancient Greece as of 
modern Turkey, and those who disdained these re- 
straints were instantly supposed to have broken 
through all others.* 

* Some amusing instances have occurred in modern Turkey 
of the impression made on the minds of pashas and other digni- 
taries, by the unveiled and unrestrained vvromen of Europe : 
courtesy alone preventing them from characterizing such females 
in the same terms that the ancients used in speaking of the fe- 
male philosophers of their time. 



IONIA. 77 

Pericles found it beyond his power to save both 
the accused, though he personally undertook their 
defence. For Anaxagoras he pleaded the blameless 
life they had all witnessed, and with difficulty ob- 
tained the commutation of the sentence of death into 
banishment ; which he lightened as far as possible, 
by carrying his honored instructor a part of the way 
towards Lampsacus, his future abode, in his own 
chariot. In Aspasia he felt a yet dearer interest, 
and in her cause all the powers of the rhetoric he 
had learned in her school were exerted : but nature 
taught a better rhetoric still : the danger of one he 
loved so well overcame the proud reserve of the 
statesman and the general ; he burst into tears ; and 
to those unwonted tears the sensitive Athenians 
granted what their fanaticism or their party spirit 
would perhaps have denied to arguments ; Aspasia 
was acquitted " much against the tenor of the law," 
observes the biographer, and Pericles, as she had 
been so nearly sacrificed on his account, resolved to 
shelter her in future, and made her his wife. 

Anaxagoras is said to have fallen into so much 
poverty at Lampsacus, that he had covered his head 
to die ; but Pericles, hearing of his state, hastened to 
him, and by timely succor, and friendly assiduity, 
lengthened the life of his friend and instructor, whose 
decease did not occur until the year after that of his 
noble pupil. The opinions of this philosopher on 
physics, have, as usual, been very imperfectly re- 
ported : he appears to have differed slightly from 
Thales in regard to the elemental form of matter, 
which he considered as consisting of various kinds 
of perfectly similar particles,* each species of which, 

* ap;^a? h rag ofxoiofXB^eiag. Diog. Laert. in vit. Anaxag. Cic. 
Lucull. c. 37. 



78 IONIA. 

by natural attraction, joined into one substance : — 
thus, that the matter of bone would be formed of one 
kind of particles, — flesh of another, and so on. Such 
at least is the representation given of his opinion on 
this head, by Aristoteles and Lucretius, who combat 
it with more violence than justice perhaps, for the 
ancients were by no means precise in the use of the 
word ^oixha, elements, and it is most probable that 
Anaxagoras did not understand it in the same sense 
as his opponents, and that his o^oto^spetat were merely 
what we should now call compound atoms, not ele- 
mental ones, which latter, among the more ancient 
natural philosophers, would have been termed prin- 
ciples. The notion that bodies consist of similarly 
formed particles, was perhaps adopted from observ- 
ing the constitution of minerals of easy fracture, 
which constantly split into similar forms ; reasoning 
from analogy, he might conclude that such could 
be the case with all substances, if they could be 
split in like manner. He is said to have considered 
earthquakes as the eflfect of air within the earth ; — 
wind as the effect of the rarefaction of the air by the 
sun ; lightning as the eff"ect of friction of the clouds 
on each other : modern philosophy has not much to 
change in this. 

In treating of the opinions of the ancient philoso- 
phers we must always recollect that the fragments 
of them which remain to us, are for the most part, 
handed down to us by persons who evidently were 
ignorant, in many cases, of the very first principles 
of the philosophy they report ; so that all the ob- 
servations, arguments, and experimental proofs, by 
which the studiers of nature in ancient times sup- 
ported their views, have been wholly lost. Aris- 
toteles, the only person capable of doing justice to 
his predecessors, was not born till nearly fifty years 



IONIA. 79 

after the death of Anaxagoras; and between the 
banishment of this latter, and the establishment of 
the former as a teacher, nearly a century elapsed; 
so that he, clear and logical as he was in all his 
reasonings, wanted the proper data on which to 
ground them, whilst criticising the supposed tenets 
of those who preceded him ; and in no instance is 
this more apparent than in his mention of the phi- 
losophical views of Anaxagoras. Yet we have in his 
writings valuable remnants of them, which give rise 
to a suspicion that they were more profound than 
his own. On the subject of the soul, he acknow- 
ledges that Anaxagoras, while asserting that one Su- 
preme Mind put dead matter into motion to form the 
universe, asserted equally that the moving power in / 

man, and the soul, were two distinct things ; and that 
this latter was of a nature unlike any material thing, 
and separate from the bodily perturbation of the pas- 
sions: in which opinions he stood alone,* says the 
Stagyrite; a point, however, which admits of con- 
siderable doubt. 

The natural philosophers of the earlier ages have 
probably been too lightly esteemed of late ; they 
have been held wild theorists who hit right sometimes 
by chance ; but it has not been sufficiently considered 
that while the road to truth is but one, the ways of 
error are innumerable ; and that, therefore, the hitting 
right by chance is not a thing of such common oc- 
currence as to justify us in assuming such to have 
been always the case. Numa is said to have fetched 
lightning from the skies at pleasure, by a process 
which was attempted by his successor, Tullus Hos- 
tilius ; who, failing, killed himself and burnt his 
palace.t The art was said to have been well known to 

* Aristot. de Anim. lib. i. c. 2. 
t Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. c. 52. 



80 IONIA. 

the old Etrurians ; some acquaintance with the laAvs 
of electricity, therefore, must have been possessed 
by these persons. Pythagoras, Avho visited Italy 
shortly after Numa's death, might M^ell become ac- 
quainted with the science of Etruria, from whence 
he probably gained the true notion of the Solar sys- 
tem which Numa also appears to have possessed :* 
but of the philosophy of Pythagoras, or the science 
of Etruria, alas ! what now remains to us ? — Yet 
even in these short and scattered notions, misunder- 
stood as they were by those who handed them down 
to us, there is enough to give the modern philosopher 
room for thought, and perhaps to raise a suspicion 
in his mind that he is but re-discovering what former 
observers had known, if not so accurately, at least 
with some degree of certainty. 

The decree procured by Diopithes, by which all 
question of existing opinions on theology or astro- 
nomy was made an indictable offence in the Athe- 
nian state, closes the first epoch in the history of 
Greek philosophy. The philosopher had hitherto 
been the guide and the lawgiver; and had been 
looked up to by all classes as one who deserved the 
highest honors. A mistaken notion, originally 
adopted in Egypt as it would seem, that the lower 
people were unfit for the knowledge of the highest 
truths, and that these were to be reserved for the 
initiated alone, was first brought into Greece by 
Orpheus ; and his successors too readily adopted it. 
The vulgar were left at the mercy of the superstition 
which so readily springs up in untaught minds, and 
the philosophic lawgiver, instead of seeking to en- 
lighten them, received the popular faith as the foun- 
dation for his code, and placed the fetiche of the 

* See Plut. vit. Num. 



IONIA. 81 

people among the things acknowledged and honored 
by the laws. Not that it is possible to root up by 
force a cherished popular superstition ; that would 
be an insane attempt : but the ignorance which cher- 
ished it ought to have been combated, and, except 
by the so-called tyrant Hipparchus, it was not. 
This bad seed bore bitter fruit: the simple religion 
of the heart, which was of force to influence the life 
when duly appealed to, gradually gave place to a 
mass of fable which the very canaille laughed at 
whilst they upheld ; — witness the favored comedies 
of Aristophanes ; — and to a set of obscene ceremo- 
nies which sapped the very foundations of public 
morals ; till at last this ugly offspring of the Orphic 
secret doctrine grew to power enough to be a fit ally 
for a political faction. Henceforward we shall no 
longer see the philosopher as an honored lawgiver ; 
his next appearance will be as a fearless martyr to 
the truth ; avowing his opinion and dying for it. 



THE END. 



SHALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 

TO BE PUBLISHED BY 

LEA AND BLANCHARD. 

No. I. 
PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES AND PHILO- 
SOPHICAL EXPERIENCE. 

(From the Second London Edition.) 
(Now ready.) 

No. II. 
ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PHY- 
SIOLOGY AND INTELLECTUAL 
SCIENCE. 

(From the Second London Edition.) 
(Now ready.) 

No. HI. 

ON MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 

PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 

(Now ready.) 

No. IV. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL 

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

(Now ready.) 

No. V. 

A BRIEF VIEW OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

UP TO THE AGE OF PERICLES. 

(Now ready.) 



No. VI. 
^ A BRIEF VIEW OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 
FROM THE AGE OF SOCRATES TO 
THE COMING OF CHRIST. 
No. VII. 
N» CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE 
IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
No. VIII. 
^ AN EXPOSITION OF VULGAR AND COM- 
MON ERRORS ADAPTED TO THE 
YEAR OF GRACE MDCCCXLV. 
No. IX. 
AN INTRODUCTION TO VEGETABLE 
PHYSIOLOGY WITH REFERENCES 
TO THE WORKS OF DE CAN- 
DOLLE, LINDLEY, ETC. 
No. X. 
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL 
LAW. 
(Now ready.) 

No. XI. 
CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY. 



This series of works has attracted great attention in England, 
and has met with an extended circulation notwithstanding the 
high price at which they have been sold. In presenting them 
to the American public, the publishers trust that their intrinsic 
value, joined to the neatness of their execution and the very 
low price at which they are offered, will secure for them a 
popularity commensurate with their merits. It will be observed 
that the series contains condensed essays on subjects calculated 
to meet almost every taste, and a succession of equally valuable 
ones is promised. 



SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 



EDITED BY A 



FEW WELL-WISHERS TO KNOWLEDGE. 



No. VL 



"Sunt etiam qui negent in iis qui in nostris libris disputent 
fuisse earum rerum de quibis disputantuf, scientiam: qui mihi 
videntur non solum vivis, sed etiam mortuis invidere." — Cic, 
Lucull. c. 2. 



Jti 



A BRIEF VIEW 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY, 



FHOM THE 



AGE OF SOCRATES 



COMING OF CHRIST. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA AND BLANCHARD. 
1846. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, 

PKINTEKS. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

471 

470 
450 
449 
445? 

444 



440 

437 

436 
432 
430 
42S 
425 



424 



423 

422 



416 



415 



OLYMP. 
LXXVII. 2 



LXXXII. 3 

4 

LXXXIII. 4? 
LXXXIV. 1 

LXXXV. 1 

4 

LXXXVI. 1 
LXXXVII. 1 

3 

LXXXVIII. 1 

4 

L XXXIX. 1 



XCI. 1 



Birth of Thucydides the historian. Banish- 
ment of Themistocles. 

Birth of Socrates. 

Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, flourished. 

Death of Cimon. 

Anaxagoras is banished for "impiety," being 
then aged about 55. 

Thucydides the son of Melesias banished. 
Protagoras the sophist flourished about this 
time: also Empedocles. 

Comedies interdicted by law. The Samian 
war. 

The law prohibiting the representation of 
comedies repealed. 

Revolt of Potidcea. 

Beginning of the Peloponnesian war. 

Plague at Athens. 

Plato born. 

Cleon takes the command at Sphacteria. The 
Acharnians of Aristophanes represented at 
the Dionysia. 

Battle of Delium, where "Socrates is said to 
have distinguished himself. Aristophanes' 
" Knights" represented. 

Aristophanes' "Clouds" represented. 

Aristophanes' " Wasps" represented. Bra- 
sidas and Cleon killed at Amphipolis. 

Diagoras the Melian, called also the atheist, 
is condemned to death for "impiety:" on 
his non-appearance at his trial, his sentence 
is published, and a talent offered for his 
head, or two talents to whoever should 
deliver him up alive. Agathon gains the 
prize of tragedy. 

Alcibiades is impeached for ridiculing the 
mysteries, and mutilating the statues of 
Mercury. He goes into voluntary banish- 
ment. 



a 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

414 
413 
412 



406 



404 



401 

400 

,396 

390 
388 
384 
376 
371 



359 
348 

345 
344 
343 

342 



OLYMP. 
XCI. 3 

XCII. 1 



xcin. 3 



xciv. 1 



xcv. 1 

XCVI. 1 

xcvii. 3 

XCVIII. 1 

XCIX. 1 

CI. 1 

en. 2 
cm. 1 



cv. 2 

CVIII. 1 



CIX. 1 

2 



Diogenes of Sinope born. 

The Athenians defeated at Syracuse. 

The rule of the 400 established at Athens. 
Protagoras prosecuted by one of them for 
"impiety" — his books burned, himself ba- 
nished. 

The battle of Arginusse fought. The victori- 
ous commanders tried for not burying the 
bodies of the slain, and on this pretext, put 
to death. Socrates refused to do his office 
of president on this occasion, asserting that 
the proceeding was illegal. Sophocles died. 

The Athenians defeated at ^Egospotamos : 
Athens taken by Lysander : the rule of the 
thirty established : the walls of Peiraeum, 
Avhich were built by Themistocles, destroy- 
ed by the Lacedaemonians. Alcibiades as- 
sassinated. 

The rule of the thirty overset by Thrasybulus, 
and the old government restored. 

Socrates put to death on the accusation ot 
Anytus, Melitus, and Lycon. 

Agesilaus King of Sparta successful in his 
attack on the Persians. 

Rome burnt by the Gauls under Brennus. 

Plato visits Sicily for the first time. 

Aristoteles born. 

Pyrrhon, the head of the Skeptic sect, born. 

Epaminondas, the Theban general, defeats 
the Spartans at Leuctra. 

Aristoteles comes to Athens and enters the 
Academy. Eudoxus the astronomer flou- 
rished. 

Philip of Macedon mounts the throne. Death 
of Xenophon. 

Death of Plato. Aristoteles leaves Athens 
and visits Hermeias, tyrant of Assus and 
Atarneus. 

Aristoteles takes refuge in Mitylene after the 
capture and execution of Hermeias. 

Timoleon delivers Syracuse from the tyranny 
of Dionysius the younger. 

Aristoteles is invited to the court of Macedon 
to superintend the education of Alexander, 
who was then fifteen years of age. 

Epicurus born. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

340 



339 
338 



334 
324 



323 



322 



318 

316 
315 



97 
294 

288 

287 



OLYMP. 
CX 


1 




2 
3 
1 


CXI. 




2 




3 


CXIV. 


1 




2 




3 


CXV. 


3 


CXVI. 


1 
2 


CXVIII. 


1 




2 
4. 


CXIX. 


cxx. 

CXXI. 


4 
3 


CXXIII. 


1 




2 





Anasarchus, an Abderite of the school of De- 
mocritus, flourished j he was the master of 
Pyrrhon. 

Death of Speusippus. Xenocrates succeeds 
him in the Academy. 

Battle of Cheronsea, where Philip broke the 
power of Greece. 

Philip of Macedon is assassinated. 

Aristoteles comes to Athens, and opens a 
philosophical school in the Lyceum. 

Alexander begins his expedition into Asia. 

Death of Alexander. Death of Diogenes of 
Sinope, aged 90. He is succeeded by 
Crates. 

Aristoteles, to avoid a prosecution for im- 
piety, flies to Chalcis. Epicurus, aged 18, 
comes to Athens from Samos, where he 
was educated. 

Death of Aristoteles at Chalcis, aged 63. 
Epicurus quits Athens and joins his father at 
Colophon. 

Demetrius Phalereus, a Peripatetic, made 
governor of Athens by Cassander. 

Arcesilaus born. 

Death of Xenocrates, Polemon succeeds him 
in the Academy. Stilpo flourished. 

Zeno of Cittieum, founds the Sect of the 
Stoics. 

Athens restored to its freedom by Demetrius 
Poliorcetes. Heeren. 

Epicurus establishes himself as a teacher at 
Athens. 

Battle of Ipsus, in which Antigonus, the father 
of Demetrius, is defeated and killed, and 
his possessions divided amongst the con- 
querors. Demetrius flies to Greece, but is 
denied refuge by the Athenians. 

Demetrius again obtains possession of Athens. 

Demetrius is placed on the throne of Mace- 
don by the army. 

Death of Theophrastus, aged 85 : Strato suc- 
ceeds him at the Lyceum. 

Athens throws off" the yoke, and resumes its 
ancient government; Demetrius, though 
driven from his throne, nevertheless invests 
the town, but at the persuasion of Crates 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



284 
281 
278 



275 



272 
271 



264 
260 
251 
244 

243 

242 
241 



229 
226 



215 



214 
211 



CXXIV. 1 



cxxv. 3 



cxxvi. 2 



cxxvii. 1 

2 



CXXIX. 1 

cxxx. 1 
cxxxii. 2 

CXXXIV. 1 



cxxxvii. 4 
cxxxviii. 3 



CXLI. 2 
CXLII. 2 



yields to their wishes. He passes the rest 
of his life in exile with his father-in-law, 
Seleucus. Heeren. 
The ^tolian league formed for defence, 
against the oppression of Macedon ; acces- 
sion of Ptolemy II., called Philadelphus. 
The Achaian league renewed by four cities 
which had freed themselves from their 
tyrants. 
Irruption of the Gauls into Greece, under an- 
other Brennus. They take Delphi. Sos- 
thenes. King of Macedon, is slain in battle 
with them. Antigonus Gonatas, the son of 
Demetrius, takes advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to seat himself on the throne of his 
father. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, drives 
him thence for a time, but after the death 
of that monarch, he again obtains the 
kingdom. 

Pyrrhus defeated by the Romans, after con- 
siderable successes in his invasion of Italy. 

Pyrrhus killed in his attack upon Sparta. 

Death of Epicurus, aged 72. Death of Strato 
Lampsacenus, the Peripatetic. He is suc- 
ceeded by Lycon. 

Death of Zeno of Cittieum, founder of the 
Stoic sect, aged 98 ? 

Victory of the Roman Duilius over the Car- 
thaginians by sea. 

Sicyon, under its deliverer Aratus, joins the 
Achaian league. 

Attempt of Agis, King of Sparta, to restore 
the ancient laws of Lycurgus. 

Corinth and Megara join the Achaian league. 

Death of Antigonus Gonatas. 

Death of Arcesilaus, aged 75. Agis, King of 
Sparta, his grandmother and mother put to 
death. 

Athens joins the Achaian league. Heeren. 

Cleomenes, King of Sparta, carries out the 
designs of Agis. 

Death of Lacydes, the successor of Arcesi- 
laus in the Academy. 

Carneades born. 

Alliance of Rome with the Jtltolians, in which 
Sparta, Elis, Attains of Pergamus, and 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



203 



200 
197 



196 

188 



183 
168 
166 
155 

146 



129 

87 



63 



CXLIV. 2 



CXLV. 1 



CXLVI. 1 
CXLVIII. 1? 



CXLIX. ii 
CLIII. 1 

3 

CLVI. 2? 

CLVIII. 3 



CLXII. 4 
CLXXIII. 2 



CLXXV. 1 
CLXXIX. 2 



Skerdilaidas, and Pleuratus oflllyria join: 
finally also the Athenians and Rhodians. 

Philip of Macedon makes war on Attains, the 
ally of Rome. 

Rome declares war on Philip. 

T. Quinctius Flaminius terminates the war 
with Macedon by the victory of Cynos- 
cephalae. 

Greece restored to its freedom by Flaminius. 

Philopoemen compels the Lacedsemonians to 
demolish their walls and abrogate the laws 
of Lycurgus. 

Death of Philopoemen, the general of the 
Achaian league. 

The battle of Pydna, which subjects the Ma- 
cedonian kingdom to Rome. 

Perseus, the last king of Macedon, dies at 
Rome. 

Carneades is sent to Rome on a mission from 
Athens, in company with Diogenes the 
Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic. 

The Achaians declare war against Sparta and 
Rome, upon which being worsted, Achaia 
is declared a Roman province. A nominal 
freedom is left to Athens, and some other 
considerable cities. 

Death of Carneades, aged 85. 

Athens taken and ruined by Sylla, 1 March. 
Heeren. 

The Academy ends with Antiochus Asca- 
lonita. 

1 Marcus Tullius Cicero, consul. 



I. 

STATE OF ATHENS— SOCRATES. 

B. c. 470 TO B. c. 400. 

The former part of this little work exhibited the 
fortunes of Greece and its civilization, from its first 
dawnings in the ancient kingdoms of Sicyon and 
Argos, up to its meridian of splendor under the great 
men who maintained the liberties of their country 
against the mightiest empire then existing: — wrench- 
ed from the invader even more than he had won from 
them, — and bequeathed to the next generation the 
fame of their deeds, and the plunder of Persia for 
their inheritance. They were two dangerous gifts. 
Athens, rich, powerful, proud of her place in the van 
of Grecian combatants, which her great generals had 
won for their country, and presuming on the supre- 
macy of the seas, which none could now contest wiih 
her, ruled her dependencies with no hght hand ; and 
Sparta, jealous of a greatness which it feared in its 
growing might, and hated for the opposite political 
system which it everywhere supported, lent a ready 
ear to the complaints of Athenian oppression made by 
the discontented. Yet the great league for the hu- 
mihation of Athens, which united against her nearly 
all Greece in the Peloponnesian war, found the force 
which had humbled Persia no easy conquest, and 
nearly thirty years of almost single-handed conflict 
scarcely sufficed to undo the work of Themistocles, 
of Cimon, and of Pericles. Nay, when she did fall, 
it may be truly said, that it was not so much the might 



12 STATE OF ATHENS. 

of her enemies, as the internal vices of the state, 
which broke her strength, and paralyzed the exer- 
tions of that once high-minded people. 

In the earlier part of the Grecian history, we have 
seen that the natural respect for superior knowledge 
had generally given to the philosopher the task of 
legislating for his countrymen; but the decree of the 
Athenian people, procured by Diopeithes about six- 
teen years before the commencement of the Pelopon- 
nesian war, by which any attempt to innovate on 
the existing popular superstition was made a capital 
offence,* was the commencement of a new epoch. 
It will be desirable before -entering upon it to take ,a 
slight view of the previous state of Athens. 

The fundamental principle of the Athenian con- 
stitution, as settled by Solon, appears to have been 
that of resting the government of the state in those 
who had a sufficient stake in it to make it their in- 
terest to preserve peace and good order ; and as the 
minimum property qualification for pohtical office 
was not more than would now be equal to about forty 
or fifty pounds per annum, of freehold property, and 
the fourth class, or Thetes, who were excluded from 
office, were nevertheless allowed to serve on juries,! 
and vote at elections; the state, even by his code, 
must have made as near an approach to a pure de- 
mocracy as was consistent, probably, with a due ad- 
ministration of the laws. Solon appears, indeed, to 
have intended to set up an antagonist power in the 
court of Areopagus, consisting of those who had held 
the highest offices of the state ; and to have guard- 
ed against the precipitation of popular movements 

* See Plutarch, vit. Peric. 

t I use this term as approaching the nearest to a description, 
of the office filled by the dicast. These juries, however, con- 
sisted of many hundreds. 



SOCRATES. 13 

by the various forms appointed to be gone through 
in the Council or Senate, before a law was presented 
to the assembly of the people for its final confirma- 
tion or rejection; but still there is no modern govern- 
ment which is so completely popular. Perhaps we 
have a nearer approach to the Athenian constitution, 
in the municipal government of the city of London, 
than in any other existing institution; the Livery, 
Common Council, and Court of Alderman, represent- 
ing tolerably well the Assembly of the People, Senate, 
and Court of Areopagus, of Athens. 

Before Solon undertook the reform of the laws, 
considerable oppression must have been exercised, 
for the very prohibitions show the practices that had 
existed. Bondage was abolished ; and no man was 
allowed to pledge his own body as security for a 
debt, or to sell his children or other relatives : mort- 
gages and debts, which were become ruinous from 
the excessive rate of interest, were reduced by some 
equitable arrangement, which cleared the land of its 
burdens, or were rendered less onerous by a reduc^ 
tion of the rate ; and a provision was made for such 
as should be mutilated in war, or otherwise incapa- 
citated from maintaining themselves. In order to 
claim this latter provision, however, it was needful 
to prove, that the whole property of the claimant did 
not amount to more than the worth of three minas, 
or about twelve pounds sterling ; which, calculating 
the price of articles of necessity at that period, was 
about equal to forty pounds in our own age and 
country.* All extreme indigence was in this man- 
ner avoided ; for the sum bestowed was sufficient to 
purchase a full supply of food daily; and thus, those 
who had little or no property, had still an interest in 

* Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, Bk. ii. c. 17. 



14 STATE OF ATHENS. 

the maintenance of good order, as their own well- 
being depended on it. Orphans, whose fathers had 
perished in war, were the charge of the state ; they 
were fed, clothed, and educated up to eighteen years 
of age, then provided with a complete suit of armor, 
and enrolled in the army. They were the especial 
children of their country, and as such bound to de- 
fend it. 

Though bondage among the native Athenians had 
been abolished, slavery was still permitted: in those 
times it was so universal, that it would scarcely have 
been possible to have abolished it in one small state ; 
and though we may probcibly trace the downfall of 
all the republics of antiquity to that cause, yet the 
evil grew up so gradually, that it was difficult at its 
commencement to anticipate the fearful magnitude 
that it would arrive at. Probably, in Solon's time, 
the slave was but a workman to aid the citizen in cul- 
tivating his lands : but we generally see, that ere 
long, the distinction between the free man and the 
slave is placed in the exemption of the former from 
manual labor ; and then idleness and dissipation, and 
all their demoralizing influences, follow. They did 
so at Athens to a frightful extent. 

By the laws of Solon, the expenses of the reli- 
gious festivals and sacrifices were limited ; but this 
part of the code very soon became a dead letter; for 
as the beasts offered were distributed among the 
poorer sort, those chiefs who wished to gain the 
popular favor, took this indirect mode of securing it. 
Splendid feasts, and immense sacrifices were made 
on all occasions by those who were rich, and wished 
to be powerful, until the people learned to consider 
this as an indispensable part of the administration 
of the state ; and, from a private disbursement, it 
became a public one. Pericles has been accused of 



SOCRATES. 15 

having- been the first thus to apply the public money, 
and of having by these means, hastened the ruin of 
the country. The law of Diopeithes, however, shows 
that his cotemporaries suspected him of an intention 
to make a considerable change in this respect; 
w^hich in fact was made, during the zenith of his 
power, by the interdiction of the exhibition of come- 
dies at the festival of the Dionysia. This law re- 
mained in force only three years, at the end of which 
time it was repealed, and comedies were again acted: 
it would seem, therefore, that he only yielded to a 
torrent which he was unable to stem. This great 
man seems to have entertained the splendid project 
of making Athens the head of the whole Grecian 
confederation ; and, probably, he contemplated the 
introduction of a better system as soon as this should 
be accomplished : for the life of Anaxagoras seems 
to have been especially precious to him, on account 
of the aid he expected to derive from him in the 
administration of the state. This seems the more 
likely, because from the time he triumphed over his 
opponents, his biographer tells us, that he assumed 
a more authoritative manner; and seemed deter- 
mined to rule, rather than to concihate the people. 
Had he lived, it is likely that he might have accom- 
phshed his purpose ; but his death left the moral 
plague of the state to be treated by unskillful hands, 
and the patient sunk into a state of incurable disease. 
The dicasts, or jurymen, appoin-ted for the hear- 
ing of causes, were required by the laws of Solon, 
to give their services gratis ; unless, indeed, we may 
suppose the prytancia, or small deposits, paid into 
court by each party on commencing an action, were 
distributed among the dicasts from the first. When, 
therefore, the jurisdiction of Athens became extend- 
ed, and the whole of her dependencies were com- 



16 STATE OF ATHENS. 

pelled to bring their suits to her courts, this duty- 
became onerous ; and, in the time of Pericles, the 
custom was introduced of paying one obolus, per 
cause, to each of the dicasts, as a small remuneration 
for the time thus consumed ; which, as they were 
mostly artisans and people of small means, they 
could not afford to waste. But the custom being 
once introduced, it became the means of gaining 
popular favor at a cheap rate in the hands of sub- 
sequent demagogues ; and the pay was augmented 
from one obolus to three, as most think, by Cleon. 
As the dicasts employed in one cause amounted to 
some hundreds,* this soon became a source of main- 
tenance to many, and there was thus a strong in- 
ducement to lengthen out causes, to the great incon- 
venience of suitors from a distance, who then had 
recourse to bribes, to induce the needy dicasts to 
make a speedy decision, and allow them to return to 
their homes. This was undoubtedly one of the causes 
that hastened the downfall of Athens, for it created 
universal discontent among the states subject to her, 
and as universal a political corruption among her 
citizens. 

The condition in which the laws of Solon placed 
the female sex was not favorable to morality. 
Though by this code, their sale was forbidden, ex- 
cepting in cases of gross misbehavior, yet the per- 
mitted sale on these occasions, at once put them on 
the footing of slaves ; and the numerous burden- 
some regulations which their movements were sub- 
jected to, with the view, it would seem, of compelling 

* The ten courts at Athens required five hundred dicasts 
each ; thus fiv« thousand citizens received daily pay, excepting 
on holidays, which perhaps amounted to about sixty days in the 
year. 



SOCRATES. 17 

an unremitting attention to domestic affairs, prevent- 
ed any of that intercourse with the external world, 
which would enlarge the mind, and make the wife 
or the mother an object of respect to the husband or 
the son. Ignorance and narrow-mindedness are an 
ill soil for any graceful virtue to grow up in ; and, 
however much Aristophanes may have Hbeled his 
countrywomen, we cannot avoid confessing, that a 
state in which such libels could be listened to patient- 
ly, must have arrived at a fearful point of licentious- 
ness, as far as regarded the manners of the male sex, 
if not also of the female. 

The consequences of unintentional oversights, and 
intentional party measures in modern legislation, 
can hardly be judged of by those whose minds are 
still heated by the political contests they have been 
engaged in : it is instructive, therefore, to contem- 
plate the primary causes of failure in legislative 
enactments, at a distance of time that may allow us 
to judge of them calmly. In the course of a cen- 
tury, Solon's laws were become almost nugatory, and 
we can now see that his code carried the seeds of 
its own decay. It permitted slavery; — and hardy 
industry soon gave place to idleness and profligacy: 
— it withheld the truth from the people, and counte- 
nanced a false superstition ; — and this was soon 
made the tool of faction ; and religion, instead of a 
guide to the heart, became a calculation of interest, 
or an excuse for profligacy ; — it found and left wo- 
men in a state of slavery : — and such a frightful de- 
moralization and degradation of the other sex ensued, 
that no modern writer can even touch upon the sub- 
ject without disgusting his readers. 

S-ich was the state of Athens, when the great man, 
who amid such wide-spread corruption still main- 
tained his integrity, was snatched from his post by 



I 



18 STATE OF ATHENS. 

the plague which desolated the city about the end 
of the eighty-seventh Olympiad. "We have traced 
Avith admiring eyes the hitherto glorious career of 
this small state ; we shall now have to follow its 
dechne, and with it, that of its rivals : for, as Athens 
had marched in the vaward of Grecian civilization 
and greatness, so her downfall was followed, in no 
long time after, by that of her short-sighted enemies. 
Sixty years after the long walls, planned by Themis- 
tocles, and built by Pericles, had been pulled down 
by the Spartans, the decisive battle of Cheronsea laid 
the liberties of all Greece at the feet of Philip of Ma- 
cedon. Sparta, which had but its iron men to recom- 
mend it, sunk into irrecoverable ruin, — the late, but 
unfailing retribution for the national sin of Helotism : 
— but Athens, though its political existence was lost, 
still kept its place as the seat of art and science ; its 
schools suppHed a preceptor for the conqueror of 
Persia, and even as late as the time of Cicero, fo- 
reigners traveled thither to study philosophy. 

The buoyancy of the human mind is not easily 
crushed, and though Anaxagoras died in banishment, 
this did not prevent Archelaus from filhng his chair 
at Athens; but made cautious by the fate of his 
master, he confined himself mainly to physics, taught 
the easy doctrine, that nothing was right or WTong 
per se, but became either the one or the other hj the 
law of the state,* and by dextrously trimming his 
course to the times, escaped the danger of offending 
the people. 

About this time, Criton, a rich Athenian, was one 
day passing the small workshop of a sculptor, where 
a young man was busily employed at his trade : he 
had seen this youth before, listening with eager at- 

* Diog. Laert., lib. ii., ^§ 16, 17. 



SOCRATES. 19 

tention to the philosophical lectures of Anaxagoras 
and Archelaus, and he entered into conversation with 
him ; for it was something unusual, even in Athens, 
to see the laborious earnings of a young and unknown 
artist devoted merely to the pursuit of philosophy. 
Criton was charmed with the talent, as well as mo- 
desty of the young student ; and, with a generosity 
which at that time, probably, he httle thought would 
immortahze his name, bestowed on the intelligent 
youth the means of pursuing his studies without 
need for farther manual labor.* The name of this 
youth was Socrates. 

Athens was then in the zenith of her power, yet 
whoever watched the state of society, could hardly 
fail to observe in it the seeds of dissolution. The 
enlightened Pericles had failed in his endeavors to 
set a higher standard of rehgion and morals; and 
his wise and excellent preceptor had suffered the 
penalty of preaching the truth too boldly. The 
grossness of the public exhibitions, and the license of 
convivial meetings were such, that the great and vir- 
tuous man who held the reins of government would 
never countenance them by his presence ; and yet 
this, instead of discouraging the practice, only excited 
the vengeance of the comedians and debauchees of 
the city. Pericles w^as made the mark for insult 
and calumny, but vice walked abroad as unblush- 
ingly as ever. 

It is easy to conceive what must have been the 
impression made by such a state of things on a young 
and earnest mind, which had drunk in, as its first 
milk of knowledge, the sublime doctrines of Anaxa- 
goras. Socrates caught up the mantle of the pro- 
phet, Hke another Ehsha, and vowed himself to the 

* Diog. Laert.,lib. ii., $20. 



20 STATE OF ATHENS. 

improvement of his fellow men. In the gymnasia, 
in the agora, in the workshops of the citizens, he 
was constantly to be found, mixing with the throng, 
detecting and reprobating vice, and teaching men, 
by pertinent and searching questions, the folly, as 
well as the immorality of their conduct. His skill 
in disputation was soon exercised by a set of men, 
who about this time sprang up, under the title of i| 
Sophists ; persons who professed to be acquainted 
with the whole round of science, and capable of im- 
parting this knowledge for a large sum of money.* 
Philosophy was the fashion, and, among the young 
nobility, these teachers found numerous pupils, who 
learned from them that species of reasoning which 
to this day is called sophistry, and with it a morality 
so loose and large that mmorality would be a more 
proper term for it. The ichneumon is not a greater 
enemy to a serpent, than Socrates was to a sophist: 
he foiled them with their own subtleties of speech, 
and detected the fallacies of their argument by a 
series of close reasoning which nothing but truth can 
endure. The noble youth of Athens enjoyed this 
war of wits, and followed the steps of the morahst 
more for the sake of amusement than profit ; but 
they followed; and Socrates, if he could not win 
them to virtue, at least taught them to respect it.t 

It is not now possible to tell exactly what were 
the political views of the philosophical party in 
Athens. That there was such a party, formed as 
early as the time of Pericles and Anaxagoras, can 

* Protagoras of Abdera, said to be the first who received 
money for his instructions, charged an hundred minas, or up- 
wards of i;400 of our money, for the complete education of a 
pupil. See Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens, Book i., 
ch. 21. 

t See Xenoph., Memor., lib. i., c. 2, ^ 24. 



SOCRATES. 21 

hardly be doubted; and subsequent events lead to 
the conjecture that the abolition, or at least, modifi- 
cation of the democratical power, was one of its ob- 
jects ; a design which, though distasteful enough to 
the people, might certainly be entertained at that 
period by a true patriot, as the only means of pre- 
venting the ruin of the state, and with it, of Greece 
generally, and almost of mankind; whose higher 
destinies seemed at that time cradled in that small 
nook of earth. Socrates appears to have formed a 
hope, — not unnatural in one who felt his own great 
powers and upright intentions, — that he might so 
far influence the young men who crowded round 
him, as to prepare a happier future for his country 
and for Greece. Alcibiades, whose talents and rank 
pointed him out as a fit successor to his uncle Peri- 
cles, was the object of his first attention:* he fol- 
lowed him in the crowd; sought his confidence, and 
succeeded so far as to win the esteem and affection 
of that most versatile and profligate of ail the Athe- 
nians; but he could get no farther, and he seems to 
have turned in despair from him, to others more 
likely to fulfil his wishes. 

Xenophon, the future leader of the ten thousand 
in their perilous retreat, was the next whom he cast 
his spell upon. Meeting him in a narrow way, he 
stopped his progress \vith his staff'; and after asking 
him some few questions of less import, inquired of 
him where and how good and upright men might be 
found. It was a puzzhng demand in Athens at that 

* The profligacy of the age, which could not even believe in 
virtue, assigned a less pure motive to the attention of the philo- 
sopher ; but the unvarying testimony of his pupils, and of Alci- 
biades himself to the virtue and self-denial of this excellent man, 
leave it only to be regretted that any modern writer should think 
such calumnies worth repeating. 

8 



22 STATE OF ATHENS. 

time, and the young man hesitated. "Come, then," 
said Socrates, "and learn."* — He did so, and to him 
it is that we owe the lovely portraiture of the life 
and conversation of the master whom he never after- 
wards forsook. But the talent and worth which 
Socrates had so anxiously cherished for his country's 
benefit, was never used in its service. Xenophon 
too was banished, for a supposed leaning to the policy 
of Sparta. He also had probably adopted the po- 
litical views of the philosophical party. 

The last on whom Socrates seems to have founded 
his hopes, was the younger Pericles ; the son of the 
gifted Aspasia. Xenophon has left us a touching 
account of an interview between the young warrior, 
just appointed to command, and the now aged philo- 
sopher, who still, with all the buoyancy of youthful 
hope, endeavored to inspire his pupil with the spirit 
of his great parent.! He found an apt scholar, and 
the victory of Arginusse, where he was one of the 
commanders, threw a final lustre over the last scion 
of a race identified with the glory of Athens. i But 
the son of Pericles, and the disciple of Socrates, now 
a victorious general, was too dangerous to the dema- 
gogues of Athens to be allowed to five : the conquer- 



* Diog. Laert., lib. ii., ^ 48. 

t Xenoph., Memor., lib. iii., c. 4. The elder Pericles lost both 
his sons by his first marriage, in the great plague, at the begin- 
ning of the Peloponnesian war. His son, by his second mar- 
riage with Aspasia, was legitimatized by the gratitude of the 
people of Athens, though the mother was not a citizen of that 
state. 

t Pericles, the elder, was the son of Xanthippus, who com- 
manded at Mycale ; and his mother was the niece of Cleisthenes, 
by whom the tyrant Hippias was driven from Athens. Alcibiades 
was the son of his brother : the victorious commander at Argi- 
Tiusae was the last of the family, apparently, if we except a son 
of Alcibiades made memorable only by a pleading of Isocrates 
on his behalf. 



SOCRATES. 23 

ing chiefs were recalled, — accused upon frivolous 
grounds, — and the assembly of the people excited 
against him by the basest arts : no defence was list- 
ened to, the forms of law were broken through, and 
he, and such of his colleagues as returned with him, 
were condemned to death. On that day Socrates 
was one of the presidents of the senate, whose duty 
it was to put the question to the assembly ; and in 
the face of that incensed multitude, edged on by their 
leaders, and howling like wild beasts for their prey — 
A scene, as Xenophon describes it, which might have 
appalled the bravest — the only bold man in Athens 
stood up, faced their fury, and refused to put a decree 
in writing which was contrary to law,* or to counte- 
nance the condemnation of innocent men: but he 
stood alone ; none had courage to second his righteous 
determination, and the victors of Arginusee were 
sacrificed to the popular madness. That fearful 
night, when one scream of lamentation ran from 
Peirasus to the city, after the fatal defeat of ^gos- 
potamos, when no eye in Athens closed to sleep, — 
well revenged them on their murderers : — the last 
hope of the state sunk in those bloody waves, and 
the rule of the thirty tyrants followed the surrender 
of the city to the Lacedaemonians. 

The tyrannous proceedings of these men soon ex- 
H cited the animadversions of Socrates; and Critias, 
•■ one of the number, who had formerly been among 
' his disciples,- and who had been roughly reproved 
by him for his vices, sent for his old teacher, and 
^ enjoined him silence. Finding him unyielding on 

■ this point, another plan was tried ; and he was com- 

■ manded, with three others, to seize Leon of Salamis, 
I — a man whose only crime was his coveted wealth, 

* Xenoph., Hist. Gr., lib. i., Memor., 1. i,, c. 18. 



I 



34 , STATE OF ATHENS. 

—and to conduct him to death. It was hoped thus 
to make the philosopher a sharer in the crime, and 
to disgrace him in the eyes of the people ; but that 
fearless morahst heard the order with silent' con- 
tempt, and instead of executing it, retired to his 
house.* Still, amid all their crimes, the former dis- 
ciples of the sage could not resolve on ridding them- 
selves of his remonstrances by the hand of the exe- 
cutioner, and he survived their rule. But the pre- 
sence of a man whose integrity neither fear nor 
interest could warp, was beginning to be irksome in 
a corrupt city ; and scarcely was the ancient govern- 
ment restored, before an accusation was preferred 
against him under the law of Diopeithes, for intro- 
ducing new gods, and for corrupting the youth of 
the city.t 

Socrates was now verging on seventy, and his life 
had not been such as to make death an evil to him ; 
his resolution therefore was quickly taken : it was a 
part of duty to submit to the laws, therefore he came 
into court and pleaded; but he disdained any of the 
mean arts usual on such occasions : instead of seek- 
ing to excite the com.passion of the judges, he re- 
minded them of his own virtuous life, in which none 
of the duties of a citizen had been neglected. He 
was accused of being a corrupter of youth ; — -he ap- 
pealed to the Pythian oracle, which had pronounced 
him the wisest, the freest, and the most upright of 
men ; and then doing himself a justice which the 
occasion demanded, he continued, — "Whom have 
you ever known less in bondage to the pleasures of 
sense ? whom more free ? since I have taken neither 
gift nor reward from any. Whom would you con- 
sider more upright than one who satisfies himself 

* Plato, Apol. Soc. t Diog. Laert., lib. ii,, ^ 40. 



SOCRATES. 25 

with what he has, without wishing or asking for any- 
thing from others ? or wiser than one who, from the 
time he could understand what was said to him, has 
never ceased to seek and to learn what was good and 
right to do ? And that I did not labor in vain, the 
esteem of all good men, whether at home or abroad, 
has shown." With a noble confidence he called 
upon his accusers to show the youth whose piety, 
or whose morals he had injured. — "But," said the 
persecutor, " you have taught them to listen to you, 
rather than to their parents." — " When I was more 
able to teach them what was right and good, I con- 
fess it," rephed the sage ; — " you trust your son to 
the physician's care, rather than your own, when 
he is sick."* — Plato, then young, and an ardent ad- 
mirer of his great master, whom, when old himself, 
he still professed to consider as the best and the 
wisest of men, — attempted to speak in his justifica- 
tion ; but he was under the age at which citizens 
were permitted to address the people, and he was 
silenced.! On taking the votes, Socrates was con- 
demned by 281 against 275 : it remained only to 
assign the sentence. Criton and Plato tried to com- 
mute it for a considerable fine, which they were 
ready to pay, in order to preserve their beloved 
friend; but the democratic party, joined with those 
incited by private pique, carried the original propo- 
sition : and the greatest man Athens ever produced, 
was condemned to death. He heard his sentence 
with the calmness that might be expected from his 
character, and left the court with these remarkable 
words : — " An unjust sentence is no dishonor to me ; 
on those who have pronounced it, falls the shame ; 
for I know well that all future time will testify, as 
the past has done,. that no one ever suffered injus- 

* Xenoph., Soc. Def. t Diog. Laert.,lib. ii. ^ 40. 



26 STATE OF ATHENS. 

tice from me; that no one was a worse man through 
my agency ; but that it was always my endeavor, 
without fee or reward, to benefit all who conversed 
with me, and to make them wiser and better men." 
Having thus spoken, he left the court with a cheer- 
ful countenance, gently chiding his weeping friends 
for their sorrow. 

It would be a pleasant task to trace more at large 
the life and death of a man, whose long and bright 
career seems to have been marked by less of human 
frailty than is usually found, even among those whom 
we call the best ; and who, in disinterested exertion 
for the good of his fellow-creatures, regardless of per- 
sonal safety, yields only to that One with whom no 
mortal can be placed in competition. But the limits 
of this small work forbid the attempt. 

It would be vain to trace the philosophical system 
of Socrates ; he had none but such as springs natu- 
rally from a belief in a superintending Providence, 
and a future state ; a faith which leads equally to 
humility and to virtue ; and whilst others admired 
his wisdom, he professed that it consisted merely in 
being aware that he knew nothing. Like Anaxa- 
goras, he lived for another world ;* and in another 
world he has doubtless found his reward. His life 
was his philosophy. 

Various have been the opinions respecting the hea- 
venly voice which Socrates, it is said, asserted to 
have been the guide of his actions : but if we may 
credit Plutarch, who makes Simmias, one of Sa- 
crates' most favored companions, say, that he had- 
asked his former teacher concerning it, and received 

* When some one asked Anaxagoras if he felt no anxiety to 
return to his country ; " Yes," said he,. pointing to the skies, 
" to my real country." Diog. Laert., in vit. Anaxag. 



SOCRATES. 27 

no answer ;* and who doubtless reports the traditions 
handed down in other writers ; the mode of this in- 
tervention was quite unknown ; and it must remain 
a matter of doubt whether, when Socrates claimed 
the divine admonition from within, he intended to 
allude to anything beyond that guidance which a 
soul purified by faith, prayer, and a temperate life, 
and cultivated by useful study, is wont to receive 
from its Creator. The commonest experience must 
have taught us that the image of God within us is a 
reflected one only, and the mirror that is kept the 
brightest and cleanest, will reflect it the best. He 
whose life and thoughts are modeled according to 
the pattern of the Deity, even though the imitation 
be but a distant one, acquires something of his fore- 
knowledge also, for he sees the true consequences 
of actions ; and many times will almost pass for a 
prophet with those whose minds have been less care- 
fully trained. But even should we believe that the 
virtuous Socrates did indeed lay claim to a special 
divine guidance, why should we think a Greek un- 
worthy of what was vouchsafed to a Hebrew ? If 
the " Word of the Lord" came to Amos " among the 
herdsmen of Tekoa," why should the humble shop 
of the sculptor be unvisited, when a preacher of right- 
eousness was to be raised up, whose voice should 
recall men to the path they had wandered from ? A 
voice which, in fact, did echo from heart to heart, 
long after the mortal frame of the speaker had crum- 
bled into dust. The acuteness, the integrity, the com- 
mon sense, so apparent in the character of Socrates, 
equally forbid us to suppose him either an enthu- 
siast or a deceiver: if, therefore, he claimed a divine 
mission, he did it not v/ithout good grounds ; and who 
will say that he was unworthy to have received it ? 

* Plut., de Socratis dsemonio. 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

B.C. 480 TO B.C. 404. 

Before entering on the examination of the differ- 
ent philosophical sects which had their origin among 
the pupils of Socrates, it will be necessary to notice 
another and cotemporary school, that of Democritus. 
This philosopher, who lived to the extraordinary age 
of 104, or, as some say, of 109 years, was a native 
of Ahdera, a city of Thrace. He was a child when, 
Xerxes passed the Hellespont; and made such large 
requisitions for the entertainment of himself and his 
army from the countries he traversed, that one of 
the citizens of Ahdera is said to have observed, that 
" the Abderites ought to go in procession to the tem- 
ples to thank the gods for not inclining Xerxes to eat 
twice a day, instead of once, for if they had been 
commanded to provide a dinner for him equal to his 
supper, they must have been reduced to utter beg- 
gary."* The father of Democritus was noble and 
wealthy ; and his entertainment of the Persian mo- 
narch was so liberal, that the king is said to have 
left him some of the Magian and Chaldean sages in 
his train, as preceptors for his young son.f 

It was probably owing to this circumstance that 
the mind of Democritus was turned so strongly to 
philosophical pursuits. In order to acquire all the 
knowledge then to be found in the world, he tra- 
veled for many years, over all the countries which 
had the reputation of science. After spending his 

* Herod., lib. vii. t Diog. Laert., lib. ix., ^ 35. 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL, W 

whole substance in this pursuit, he returned home, 
and Hved in the most frugal manner, on the bounty 
of his brother ; but nothing could deaden his thirst 
for knowledge ; and in his humble dwelHng, he still 
pursued his experiments in philosophy, and his re- 
searches into the nature of things. Once he visited 
Athens, and boasted that he had seen Socrates, 
though unknown to him,* and to the Athenians gene- 
rally ; for he seems to have shunned celebrity, as 
much as his friend and disciple Protagoras sought 
it. He is said to have derided the follies of men as 
' much as Heraclitus had lamented them, and rarely 
to have appeared in public without laughing at what 
he heard and saw : and this is not surprising ; for 
as his time was almost wholly devoted to experimen- 
tal philosophy, he must have found ample room for 
' ridicule in the vulgar errors of his day upon such 
; subjects. The morahst, Heraclitus, on the contrary, 
could have found no room for merriment in the licen- 
. tiousness of his country. 

As the writings of Democritus are lost, it is im- 
, possible to say what extent of knowledge his re- 
' searches had acquired for him:^ the loss is the more 
/ to be regretted as there is scarcely a subject in na- 
tural philosophy which he did not treat of; and from 
his habits of careful experiment we may suppose 
^ that he did not assert Hghtly what he taught on such 
subjects. Somewhat of private pique at finding that 
Anaxagoras shunned his acquaintance, led him to 
treat the opinions of that philosopher with little re- 
spect: for he averred that the notion of the Ionian 
sage respecting the sun and moon, i. e., that of their 
solid, terrestrial nature, was not by any means his 
own, but stolen from the doctrine of the ancients on 

* Diog. Laert., lib. ix., ^ 36. 



30 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

that subject; and he " pulled to pieces" also, — such 
is the expression of his biographer,* — the opinions 
of Anaxagoras respecting the formation of things, 
and the creative mind. By the term ^laxoofirjaiii 
i. e., generation or government of things, he proba- 
bly understood the dixovo/xipscac, or exactly similar 
particles which went to the formation of each body, 
according to the system in question. The differ- 
ence between the two philosophers on this point ap- 
pears to have been, that Anaxagoras beheved the 
particles to have no natural movement, and to be the 
mere clay in the hand of the potter, — the stuff which 
the Eternal Mind {vov?) nioulded to his will by an 
immediate art ; — Democritus, on the contrary, con- 
sidered the atoms which he supposed the universe 
to be composed of, to have peculiar inherent qualities 
which form a part of their very nature ; not of color, 
smell, taste, heat, or cold, these being mere accidents 
resulting from a peculiar state or combination ; but 
a disposition to a peculiar movement, by which these 
combinations were effected. In this, if our modern 
philosophy mistake not, Democritus was nearer right 
than his rival ; for it is by the properties impressed 
on matter in the first instance, or, in other words, 
by the forces thus brought into action, and not by 
immediate interference, that the hand of the Creator 
manifests itself. As far as modern discovery has 
gone, we are obliged to acknowledge a considerable 
variety either in the elemental atoms themselves, or 
their properties ; for oxygen of the same volume 
contains sixteen times the weight of hydrogen, and 
thus it becomes clear, either that the elemental atoms 
of which it is composed must be more dense, or the 
substance less elastic, or that the particles must ex- 

* Diog. Laert., lib. ix., ^ 35. 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 31 

jicise a less repulsive power, and thus be more nu- 
merous in a given space. Democritus having arrived 
at the point, that the coherence of the universe, and 
' the phenomena of matter, might all be traced to the 

■ primary qualities of the elemental atoms, paused; 

■ *' we know not the cause of this," said he, " the 
1 truth is hid very deep."* His early intercourse with 
• the Magians, and his own subsequent researches, 

■ seem to have led him to lean to the notion, that as 

■ the sun's light and heat were the great agents in the 
' combination and movement of the primary particles, 
' so that some divine power resided in it, and that it 
^i might be considered as the soul of the world.t 

The life and moral doctrines of Democritus were 

- pure, and his death peaceful. He is said to have 
:^ considered the great happiness of life to consist in 
< the freedom from tormenting cares and fears, and 
^superstitions; the most blessed state being that of 
J complete tranquilhty. He has been called an athe- 
^ ist, so also was Anaxagoras, and so also were the 
fi first Christians ; we may conclude, therefore, that 
ii this term, in the language of the times, meant no 
^ more than that the person so distinguished, did not 
■believe in the established superstitions.:]: Deeply 

' engaged during his whole hfe in physical research, 
3 Democritus appears to have contented himself with 
'< leaving untouched the arcana which he could not 

- penetrate. He was aware that there were great 
Uruths which he had not reached; and we may pro- 



'" alrih S'£ aS~£v 2'5^ev, bv BvQS> yko h aXndeia. Diog. Laert., lib. ix., 
: 72. 

t See Cyril cont. Jul., lib. i. 

1 To this day, in Italy, all who doubt of the Romish fables — 
lot of the fundamental doctrines, on which the Romanist unites 

:h all Christian churches — are currently termed atheists. 



32 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

bably, with more justice, call that humility which 
his successors called atheism. He fulfilled his duties 
to the best of his power, and waited patiently for 
more hght; not deeming that he knew, and not hop- 
ing to know those deep things, whose full profund- 
ity none ever feel so thoroughly as those who have 
pushed research to the utmost ; and having done so — 
having, hke Vishnu in the Hindii fable, burrowed 
in the earth, and soared in the air, and yet failed to 
find either the head or feet of the Creator — bow their 
wearied heads in the dust, and acknowledge the dif- 
ference between the Finite and the Infinite. 

Democritus had several disciples: among these, 
two of the most famous were his fellow-citizen Pro- 
tagoras, and DiAGORAs, the Melian. The former 
is said to have been originally a wood-cutter from a 
neighboring village, whose clever mode of tying up 
his load attracted the attention of Democritus in one 
of his walks:* he undertook his instruction, and 
under his tuition, Protagoras acquired rhetoric and 
philosophy. The former wood-carrier profited so 
well by his master's teaching, that he soon became 
famous, and was one of the first of the class already 
mentioned, on whom the title of sophist was bestow- 
ed, and who undertook, for a sum of money, to teach 
the whole round of science to whoever sought their 
instruction. Though the sketch which Plato has 
given us under his name must have owed much to 
the imagination of that most graphic of writers, — for 
when Protagoras visited Athens, the author of the 
dialogue was not yet born, — yet as doubtless the ' 
scene he gives was drawn from the life, it will be a 
relief from graver and drier matters, to take a view 

* Athen.j l.viii. 50. The circumstance is mentioned also by 
Aulus Gellius. 1 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 33 

! of the interior of a great man's house in Athens, 
' where no less than three famous sophists were the 
P guests. The scene is laid about the time when Athe- 
h manpower was at its height, just before the Pelopon- 
f nesian war ; and when the banishment of Anaxagoras 
i" had made way for a very different style of philoso- 
p phy. Socrates was then young, and he is, as usual, 
p introduced by his clever disciple as a sort of lay 
f figure, to be dressed in the garb best suited to the 
' occasion. 

1 "Hippocrates, the son of Apollodorus," says the 
j pseudo relator, " came this morning before it was 
- light, and knocked at my door with his stick : as 
H soon as it was opened, he came straight to my room, 
I' crying, ' Socrates, are you awake?' and I, knowing 
f his voice, replied : ' Why, this is Hippocrates ! — 
ji.what is the matter?' — ' — 'Nothing, or nothing but 
.^'good.' — ' So much the better ; but what is it ? — and 
pwhy are you come now?' — 'Protagoras is arrived,' 
Psaid he, coming nearer. 'He has been here some 
?Uime,' said I ; 'have you only just heard it?' — 'By 
f'the Gods ! not till last evening;' — and, feeling about 
'('for my bed, he sat down at my feet, and said, ' Last 
I' evening coming back late from GEnoe, for my slave 
I' Satyrus had run away from me, — and certainly I 
:■ should have told you that I was going after him, but 
['something else put it out of my head; — after I had 
I' got home, and we had supped, and were going to 
I" bed, my brother told me that Protagoras was arrived; 
)'and then I was immediately coming to you, but I 
i* thought the night too far advanced; and so, hastily 
^ taking the sleep which my fatigue required, I pre- 
f sently rose and came hither.' I, knowing his warm 
'-temper, asked him if Protagoras had injured him in 
any way ? ' Yes, by the Gods, Socrates,' replied he, 
laughing, ' for he chooses to keep all his learning to 



34 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

himself, and will not make me wise too.' — 'By Jove,' 
said I, 'if you persuade him, by giving him plenty 
of money, he will be very ready to make you learned 
also.' 'Oh Jupiter, and all the Gods ! if that were 
all,' exclaimed he, 'I would not leave a penny in 
my own purse, or my friends' either. And it is ex- 
actly for this that I am come to you, that you might 
speak to him for me ; for I am young, and I never 
saw Protagoras, or heard him speak. I was a child 
when he first came to Athens, but now I hear every- 
body praising him, and talking of his skill in speak- 
ing. Why cannot we go to him now, when we shall 
be sure to find him at home ? He is staying, as I 
hear, with Callias, the son of Hipponicus. Let us 
go.'i — 'By no means, my good friend,' said I, 'it is 
too early: but we will go into the hall, and there 
we may walk and pass away the time till it is light ; 
then we will go ; for Protagoras usually spends his 
time in doors, so that we may be tolerably sure of 
catching him within."' Socrates is then made to 
question his friend as to what he proposes to learn 
from Protagoras. Hippocrates confesses that by 
going to a sophist for instruction he must learn to 
be a sophist himself. " And would you not be 
ashamed to be known to the Greeks as a sophist?" 
asks his friend. " Why, by Jove, if I am to confess 
the truth, I think I should," replies the young man: 
however, an Athenian's curiosity being excited by 
" some new thing," must be gratified, and the friends 
depart for the residence of Callias ; but some differ- 
ence of opinion having arisen in their conversation 
by the way, they walk up and down before the door ' 
till they have settled their dispute. " The porter, 
who is a eunuch," pursues the narrator, '* I fancy 
heard us, and it seems that he had been put in an 
ill humor with all who approached the house, by the 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 35 

influx of sophists ; for when we knocked at the door, 
he opened it a little way, and seeing us, exclaimed 
— * Oh, more sophists ! He has no leisure to attend 
to you ;' and taking the door with both his hands, 
he flung it to with a hearty good will. We knocked 
again, and he, keeping the door shut, replied from 
within — ' Have you not heard what I told you ? He 
has no time to attend to you.' 'But,' said I, ' we 
do not want Callias, and we are not sophists ; do not 
be alarmed; we are only come to call upon Protago- 
ras: will you announce us V But even then it was 
with difficulty that we persuaded him to open the 
door. 

" When we entered, we found Protagoras walking 
in the front colonnade (prostoa), and with him were 
walking, on the one side, Callias, the son of Hippo- 
nicus, his half brother Paralus, the son of Pericles, 
and Charmides, the son of Glaucon : on the other 
side were Xanthippus, the other son of Pericles, 
Philippides, the son of Philcmelus, and Antimaerus 
the Mendian, the most promising of Protagoras' dis- 
ciples, who was learning his art in order to become 
a sophist himself. Behind them walked others who 
were listening to the conversation ; these, for the 
most part, appeared to be strangers, who had fol- 
^ lowed Protagoras from the towns he passed through, 
caught by the sweet tone of his voice, as the beasts 
followed Orpheus : some, too, there were from the 
neighborhood, Avho filled up the attending chorus. I 
was amused to see the admirable order observed by 
these Hsteners, and how careful they were never to 
advance beyond Protagoras ; for as soon as he and 
his companions turned, they opened on each side in 
a half circle, to allow him to pass, and then again 
ranged themselves respectfully behind. 

"I next perceived, as Homer says, Hippias of Elis, 



36 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

enthroned in the opposite colonnade ; and sitting 
below him upon the steps, Eryximachus, the son of 
Acumenos, and Phsedrus, the Myrrhinusian, and 
Andron, the son of Androtion, and some strangers, 
fellow-citizens of Hippias, mixed with others. They 
seemed to be asking Hippias questions in physics 
and astronomy, and he, from his throne, replied, and 
explained the things asked. There too I saw Tan- 
talus,* that is to say, Prodicus of Ceos, who was also 
lately arrived. He was in a little room which had 
been formerly used as a storeroom by Hipponicus ; 
but now, on account of the influx of strangers, Cal- 
lias had emptied it, and given it up to their use. 
Prodicus was still in bed, smothered in skins and 
coverlets, as it seemed; and sitting beside him, was 
Pausanias of Ceramis, and, beside Pausanias, a youth 
of particularly agreeable countenance, that seemed a 
great favorite of his. I thought 1 heard him called 
Agathon. There were besides, the two Adimanti, 
the one the son of Cepis, and the other the son of 
Leucolophides, and some others. 1 could not hear 
the subject of their conversation, as I was outside, 
though 1 was most eager to hear Prodicus, as he 
appears to me to be a thoroughly learned and divine- 
minded man ; but his voice being very deep, pro- 
duced a sort of humming in the room, which hindered 
me from hearing distinctly w^hat he said. We en- 
tered, and soon after us came the handsome Alci- 
biades, and Critias, the son of CaUischros. 

" After we had been there a short time, and had 
contemplated the scene before us, we advanced 
towards Protogoras, and addressing him, I told him 
that Hippocrates and I were come to speak with him. 

* In the original, some passages from Homer's description of 
the infernal regions are parodied. 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 37 

<Do you wish to see me alone, or here among the 
rest?' said he. 'No matter; when I have told you 
our business, you will yourself judge what is pro- 
per/" Socrates now explains Hippocrates' wish 
to become his scholar, and then asks if he thinks 
proper to speak with him privately or not: to which 
Protagoras replies, "You have judged right, Socrates, 
regarding me ; for a stranger traveling from one great 
city to another, and in each of them persuading the 
youth of the highest rank to quit their friends and 
connections, and attach themselves to him, only that 
they may become better by their intercourse with 
him, has need of caution ; for he is sure to encoun- 
ter no small hatred, as well as other discomforts and 
enmities. I, however, maintain that the sophist's 
art is a very ancient one ; but those who first exer- 
cised it, fearing the disagreeable consequences, en- 
deavored to hide it under various pretexts and dis- 
guises ; some veihng it in poetry, as Homer, Hesiod, 
and Simonides ; others giving it the character of in- 
itiations and oracles, as Orpheus andMusasus : others 
have carried it on under the name of gymnastics, as 
Iccos of Tarentum, and as is still done by a sophist 
of our day, who yields to none in skill, I mean He- 
rodicos the Selymbrian, whose ancestors were of 
Megara: your Agathocles too, an excellent sophist, 
made music his pretext, as did Pythoclides of Ceos, 
and many others. All these, as I have told you, 
fearing the envy they might encounter, concealed 
their profession under the veil of these arts : but I 
do not approve their plan, for I am of opinion that 
they did not effect what they intended ; since it was 
quite impossible to conceal themselves from those in 
possession of authority, on whose account, neverthe- 
less, these disguises were assumed : and as for the 
many, they, so to speak, know nothing, but raise a 



38 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

cry only when they are told to do so." He then 
goes on to claim for himself the merit of frankness 
in avowing boldly his profession, and offers to hear 
what they have to say in the presence of the whole" 
party. 

"I knew," continues the imaginary narrator, "that 
his object was to act a good figure before Prodicus 
and Hippias, by letting them see that we had quite 
fallen in love with him; I therefore asked if we 
should not call them and their friends, to be present 
at the conversation. ' Certainly,' said Protagoras, 
and CaUias inquired whether seats should not be 
prepared, that all might speak or hear at their ease. 
We all approved the motion, and set to work to carry 
chairs and benches to the side where Hippias was ; 
because there were already some seats there. Mean-, 
time, Callias and Alcibiades came back, bringing 
with them Prodicus, whom they had induced to 
rise, and with him those who had been sitting in his 
room." 

Protagoras, who throughout is made to speak with 
considerable affectation of eloquence, now addresses 
himself to the young man, promising him, that under 
his instruction, he shall every day find that he has 
made some advance in knowledge. Socrates asks 
him, what sort of knowledge? Protagoras replies, 
with great politeness, that it is a very proper ques- 
tion, and that it is pleasant to him to answer such ; 
and adds: "If Hippocrates follows me, he will. not 
be wearied with the things which other sophists 
would compel him to learn. They, when they take 
a young man, how much soever he may shun the 
arts, lead him back to them in spite of himself, 
teaching him figures, and astronomy, and geometry, 
and music" — and whilst saying this, he cast a mean- 
ing glance on Hippias — "while, if he follows me, he 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 3^ 

will learn nothing but what he comes to learn, for 
my instruction will only have for its object the 
guidance of his conduct both in public and private 
affairs." — Farther questions are then put in the 
mouth of the imaginary narrator, by which the false 
moral system of the sophists is exposed : upon which, 
Protagoras is made to close the conversation with a 
comphment to Socrates on his clever management of 
the dispute, "which really augured considerable emi- 
nence in the art as he grew older," and a polite an- 
nouncement that he had other business to attend to. 

After this spirited sketch of the character of a 
sophist, little more need be said of Protagoras. His 
skepticism brought him at last into ill odor at Athens ; 
and the books in which he asserted that there were 
no certain means of knowing whether there were 
gods or not, were condemned to be sought out from 
all those who possessed them, and burnt by the hands 
of the executioner. He himself was banished from 
the city, and required never again to set foot on Attic 
soil.* If, as some say, the accuser was one of the 
four hundred, this must have occurred b. c. 412. 

DiAGORAs, the Melian, was likewise a pupil of 
Democritus, but not a sophist. He has been branded 
by ah antiquity with the title of "the atheist," from 
his daring contempt of the superstition of his times. 
For this he was tried at Athens, and as he did not 
appear in order to defend himself, his sentence was 
engraved on a brass column ; by this a talent (about 
^240) was offered for his head, and two talents to 
whoever should take him alive, which implies an 
intention of adding torture to death. t This sentence 
was passed b. c. 416. The offences proved, appear 

* Diog. Laert., in vit. Protag. Brucker, Hist, Crit. Phil., Pars 
II., lib. ii,, c. 11. 
t Brucker, ib. 



40 DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

to have been, the divulging the secrets of the mys- 
teries; and on some occasion, when fire-wood was 
wanting, the using a statue of Hercules for that pur- 
pose, with the observation, that he would give the 
god a thirteenth labour, that of cooking the dinner 
for Diagoras.* What his real sentiments were, we 
have no means of judging but from his life, which, 
like that of his master, Democritus, appears to have 
been blameless. A writer who was better able to 
judge of this matter than we can now be, makes that 
the test of his belief, and it is probably a just one. 
" It is wonderful to me," says Clement of Alexandria, 
"how Euhemerus the Agrigentine, and Nicanor the 
Cyprian, and Diagoras, and Hippon the Melian, and 
that Cyrenian who came a little after them, Theodo- 
rus by name, and many others who led excellent 
lives, and were only clearer sighted than others as 
to the errors current regarding the gods, should have 
been called atheists. If they did not actually know 
the truth, they at least suspected the error, and kept 
alive the embers of that true knowledge which after- 
wards enlightened the earth. "~We may reasonably 
conclude that the persons here referred to, would 
scarcely have exposed themselves to danger by a 
public exhibition of their contempt for the popular 
superstition, unless they had had some feeling of a 
higher and nobler truth, which they were eager to 
draw attention to ; mere contempt would have smiled 
at the folly, and lived quietly in the midst of it. The 
law of Athens was not unknown; it was scarcely 
passed, ere Anaxagoras, no obscure man, was its 
victim, and escaped with his Hfe only through the 
influence of Pericles, then so powerful in the state : 
it seems, therefore, hardly possible to avoid the con- 
clusion already drawn, that the philosophical party 

* Clem. Alex. Protrep.j c. 2. 



DEMOCRITUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 41 

was a political one also, the leaders of which were 
pursuing, — too carelessly, perhaps, as regarded 
practicability, — an ideal state of perfection; and 
sacrificing themselves without regret to the promo- 
tion of this great object. Their followers, such as 
Alcibiades, Critias, Theramenes, and others, saw in 
the doctrines of the philosophical party, the means of 
advancing themselves,* and used the self-sacrificing 
philosophers as their stepping stones to power and 
place. It may be observed in confirmation of this, 
that when Alcibiades was banished for his supposed 
profanation of the mysteries, and mutilation of the 
statues of Mercury,! his enemies " bellowed, that 
these arts struck at the very foundations of the de- 
mocracy ;"± for the subsistence of the lower classes of 
citizens was at this time so bound up with the exist- 
ence of the superstition of the state, that the subvert- 
ing the one was supposed to be tantamount to the 
starving the other. As the Peloponnesian war ad- 
vanced, the impoverishment of the citizens of course 
kept pace with its progress : and, in consequence, 
we find the proceedings against all "impiety," as it 
was called, were more and more virulent. The 
contest, although the philosophers were the sufferers, 
was in fact between the aristocratic party, or that of 
persons who thought their rank in the state gave 
them a right to govern it, and the democratic, or that 
of those who, having the art of exciting the people, 
sought to bear rule by their means. This state of 
things is by no means obsolete. 



* Xenophon expressly affirms this to have been the case. 
Memoral., lib. i., c. 2. 

t They were blocks of stone rudely fashioned, and so little 
decent in their form, that Philip of Macedon's jest, in which he 
likened the Athenians to their own statues of Mercury, is too 
coarse to be here repeated. 

t Thucyd., lib. vi. 



III. 

PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

B.C. 389? TO B.C. 80, 

The death of their great master was the signal for 
the dispersion of all who had been known as the 
especial disciples of Socrates. Those who came from 
foreign countries returned to their homes, and those 
who were natives of Athens sought shelter either 
with them, or in more distant lands : Plato, espe- 
cially, hetook himself to foreign travel as most pre- 
ceding philosophers had done. After staying for a 
time with Euclides, at Megara, he proceeded to 
study geometry under Theodorus, at Cyrene : he 
then visited Egypt to learn astronomy, and from 
thence passed into Italy, where he sought to make 
himself acquainted with all that had been taught in 
the schools of Pythagoras.* He was preparing like- 
wise to visit India, but was deterred by the wars then 
carrying on in Asia. From Italy he crossed over 
mto Sicily,! to view Mount ^tna, and there became 
acquainted with Dionysius the elder, the tyrant of 
Syracuse, by the intervention of Dion, whose sister 
this latter had married. 

This young noble had eagerly sought the conver- 
sation of Plato, and believed, with all the ingenuous- 
ness of youth, that the tyrant would listen to the 
precepts of the philosopher ; but when the pupil of 

* See Brucker's Hist. Crit. Phil., Pars ii. lib. ii. c. 4. 
t Plutarch in vit. Dionis. 



PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 43 

Socrates began to explain the charms of virtue, and 
like Paul, to reason of righteousness, temperance, 
and it may be, also, of a judgment to come, — for 
even this seems to have formed a part of the Socra- 
tean doctrine, — Dionysius could bear it no longer, — 
asked him what business he had in Sicily; — and 
not only dismissed him rudely from his presence, 
but bribed the master of the vessel in which the 
philosopher hastened to depart, either to put him to 
death on the passage, or to sell him for a slave. The 
seaman complied with the latter part of the behest, 
by carrying him to ^gina, the inhabitants of which 
were then at variance with Athens, and enslaved 
any of her citizens who fell into their hands. He 
was, however, immediately redeemed by Anniceris, 
a philosopher of the Cyrenaic sect, who set him at 
liberty, and refused all repayment of the sum thus 
expended. 

It is not very clear whether Plato had returned to 
Athens until now, for the course of study and of tra- 
vels above mentioned, might very well have consumed 
twelve years, the period which had elapsed since the 
death of Socrates. Be that as it may, it is certain 
that he now, if not before, bought a small property; 
lying without the walls on the northwest, in the part 
called Cerameicus. This, though a low and un- 
healthy spot, he planted and beautified, and from the 
appellation of the neighboring Gymnasium, — the 
Academy, — the school of philosophy which he estab- 
tished here was usually called the Academic. Here, 
with the exception of two voyages to Sicily made at 
the request of the younger Dionysius, he passed the 
remainder of his life, which closed peaceably at the 
age of eighty-one. 

Plato's works are, or may be in the hands of every 



44 PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

one ;* it is, therefore, not necessary to enter ,at so 
great length into his doctrines as from the influence 
they long had, and perhaps still have in the world, 
would otherwise have been requisite. One thing 
must be premised, to prevent his works from being 
misunderstood by those who may take them up for 
their own information. Socrates is made to take a 
large part in these most interesting dialogues, and 
with such consummate skill is the scene laid, and 
the actors introduced, that few would suspect that 
the great teacher of the Academy was only using 
the name of his old master as a convenient cloak for 
his own opinions. Doubtful how far the Athenian 
people might brook his doctrines, and mindful of the 
fate of Anaxagoras, of Diagoras, of Prodicus,t and of 
Socrates, he probably thought it expedient to appear to 
be merely reporting what he had heard. Socrates, 
justly or not, had paid the penalty of his imagined 
crime; — were Plato accused, he had but to say, " I 
am justifying your decree, for here are some of the 
heterodox opinions of my former master." A small 
attention to chronology will make this apparent. 
The dialogue entitled Protagoras, so full of graphic 
detail, which has been already noticed, lays the scene 
at a period when the sons of Pericles were yet liv- 
ing. They died in the great plague 430 b. c, when 
Plato himself Was not born. It is quite impossible 
that any interlocutor could have reported a conversa- 
tion held thirty years before, with exactitude enough 
to enable him to give question and answer with 
such precision : — at best he must have .worked up a 

* A very elegant French translation, lately published by M. 
Cousin, places these most delightful writings within the reach 
even of those who cannot read the original. 

t Prodicus is said to have been put to death in the same man- 
ner as Socrates. V. Suidas. 






PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 45 

general sketch by the aid of his own Hvely imagina- 
tion ; but it is more Hkely that he only made use of 
this mode of writing, by way of combating the known 
doctrines of Protagoras, and ridiculing generally the 
whole race of sophists. Another anachronism may 
be found in the Menexenus. Here Socrates is made 
to repeat a funeral oration Avhich he professes to 
have heard from Aspasia ; but this oration refers to 
circumstances which occurred fourteen years after 
the death of that philosopher. Probably the true 
state of the case was well known to Plato's cotem- 
poraries, and these anachronisms gave them no con- 
cern, because they knew that the names of the inter- 
locutors were only used as a vehicle for conveying 
the philosophy of the Academy. It would not have 
been needful to say thus much, had not the notion 
been very general that we were to look for the doc- 
trines of Socrates in the writings of Plato. 

Even the doctrines of Plato himself are not al- 
ways to be found clearly set forth in his writings, for 
he seems to have had less of physical courage than 
his great master, and he has been at considerable 
pains in those writings which were to be made pub- 
lic, to veil his own opinions under the name of one 
or other of his interlocutors ; and where he is himself 
the speaker, as in his " Laws," he is exceedingly 
cautious when he begins to speak on the matter of 
religion ; requiring the festivals of the Gods to be 
duly observed, although in his " Euthyphron," under 
the name of Socrates, he had derided the supersti- 
tions of the age without mercy. The disguise Avas 
but a flimsy one, nevertheless, and he probably owed 
his safety more to the crestfallen state of the demo- 
cratic power, than to his own caution; since a public 
informer on one occasion is said to have hinted to 
5 



46 PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

him that there was still some of Socrates' hemlock 
left in the cup.* 

The ridicule cast upon Plato by the comic poets 
for his gravity, his doctrine of the existence of a soul 
in man, that would exist after the dissolution of the 
body, and other Socratic habits and opinions, are 
among the best proofs that he was a faithful imitator 
of that excellent man ; and refute sufficiently the 
charges brought against his morals by others, ground- 
ed chiefly on some poetry said to be his ; but which, 
if written by him at all, were apparently a part of 
the early performances which, after hearing Socrates 
for the first time, he solemnly devoted to the god of 
fire. His gentleness towards those about him, his 
temperance, his courage when he believed there was 
any special duty to be fulfilled, are the best comments 
on his opinions. 

If we may assume the words put in the mouth of 
the Pythagorean Timseus, to be those of Plato him- 
self, the following is his notion of the origin of the 
universe. The first thing to be determined, he 
says, is, what that is which is eternal, and therefore 
self-existent ? — We take cognizance of this by our 
reason, and we know that it must be unchangeable : 
by our senses we are made aware of another some- 
thing which is constantly changing; being born, 
destroyed, and reproduced: but since what has a 
beginning must have a cause, this has therefore no 
existence proper to itself. Thus the material uni- 
verse must be produced by the Eternal Cause and 
Father of all things, who is good, intelhgent, and 
almighty; but difficult to be sought out by the wisest 
even, — incomprehensible to the vulgar. This eternal 
Father has fashioned the world after a pattern in his 

* Diog. Laert,, lib. iii. ^ 24. 



PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 47 

own thoughts, and considering that nothing is per- 
fectly good without a soul, he has made the universe 
a living being, having material parts, animated by a 
divine spirit. All this is still only a refinement on 
the Orphic doctrine, which, in fact, was but the truth 
disguised ; and as Pythagoras seems to have again 
made this truth clear to his disciples, it is easily con- 
ceivable that Plato, in studying the Pythagorean 
opinions, found them on the whole satisfactory, and 
only improved upon them a little for his own school. 
In morals he seems to have trod very closely in 
the steps of his master Socrates, teaching that tem- 
perance, justice, submission to the laws, and perfect 
purity of life, were requisite to form a wise man, and 
that none but a good man could be a happy one. He 
appears to have made an effort to spirituahze and 
purify the passionate love of beauty which prevailed 
among the Greeks, and thus to reform the general 
licentiousness of manners: for, according to him, 
beauty is but the reflection, in the features, of the 
beautiful soul within : it is to be preserved only by 
virtuous dispositions, and those who love to contem- 
plate it, should cherish it by cultivating in the object 
they admire those perfections, w^hich, as life advances, 
may form the foundation of a lasting friendship. He 
considered the soul as independent of the body, and 
held it to be a part of the Divine Spirit which the 
Creator had enwrapped in matter ; its beatification, 
probably, for that is not quite so clear, he considered 
to be a re-absorption into the Deity; though in some 
places, particularly in his Phsedon, he makes Socrates 
speak of the happiness of meeting with glorified and 
happy spirits in another state of being. The proofs, 
however, which he endeavors to give of the immor- 
tahty of the soul are weak, so weak that Cicero, 



48 PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

though wishing to beHeve the doctrine, makes his 
auditor declare that he found them unsatisfactory.* 

In physics, Plato appears to have embraced the 
atomic theory of the Pythagorean school; and, late 
in life, their astronomical views also. Some pas- 
sages in his Timseus would lead us almost to imagine 
that the Pythagorean doctrine trod close on the heels 
of modern science. A natural philosopher of our 
own age could scarcely have been more explicit than 
Plato, in assuring us that the action of magnetism 
and electricity, as shown in the loadstone, and amber 
when excited by friction, was not owing to any pecu- 
liar attraction in those substances, but to the move- 
ments communicated through contiguous particles 
under peculiar circumstances. His theory of the 
nourishment of the body by the affinity of certain 
particles for each other, and their consequent assimi- 
lation, is also in great measure that of modern chemis- 
try ; and like modern chemists too he separates the 
immortal soul from the life of the body. He considers 
man to be gifted with three souls, i. e., the undying 
one which survives the body, and is peculiar to man; 
the mental one which we term the faculties, of which 
beasts partake in a certain degree ; and the purely 
mortal, which consists in the organic life, which is 
shared alike by plants and animals. 

In politics — for there is no subject which the 
capacious mind of Plato did not embrace — his 
views are peculiar and full of interest. He had 
looked with the eye of a wise and good man on the 
disorders of the state, and the consequent oppression 
of the people in his days; and in his "Republic," 
and his " Laws," he seems to have been endeavor- 
ing to discover and point out a remedy. And here 

* Cic, Tusc. Quest., lib. i., c. 11. 



PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 49 

we are at once struck with the inefficiency of all the 
means which the superstition of those days afforded 
towards the reform of society. Aware that nothing 
but national virtue could insure national prosperity, 
he proposes to eradicate vices by destroying the in- 
dividual will of the citizen. The Spartans had shown 
that this was no impossible plan, for the laws of Ly- 
curgus had in great measure effected it during some 
centuries. Plato proposes to make his citizens merely 
portions of the body politic: no one was to have 
liberty to regulate his own life ; every hour was to 
have its employ regulated by law ; no possibility of 
increase of property, no domestic relations were to 
insulate the citizen from the state : but in this ima- 
ginary state of his he forgets what it is which en- 
dears his country to man ; for it is not an abstract 
term that can be loved. Even in Lacedsemon natural 
affection was not wholly trampled on ; the mother 
of the Spartan was his counselor and his guide: the 
"Return with this, or on it," of the matron arming 
her son for the battle, when she handed him his 
shield, is well known : when the unfortunate Agis 
perished in the endeavor to restore the laws of Ly- 
curgus, his mother and his grandmother shared, and 
aided in his designs, and fell with him; and gene- 
rally the women of Laconia played a very different 
part in society from the rest of their sex in the 
Grecian states. Probably his increasing respect for 
the Spartan lawgiver induced him, in his "Laws," 
to abandon that part of the views advocated in the 
"Repubhc," which relates to women, for he here 
proposes to train them, as in Sparta, to martial ex- 
ercise, and to give them a share in the affairs of the 
government, as the means of rendering them vir- 
tuous and useful, as well as capable, on a last emerg- 
ency, of defending themselves and their children 



50 PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

from an invading foe. He proscribes all commerce, 
as a source of vice ; and would insulate the state as 
far as possible from all others, in order to avoid the 
danger of contamination ; and, — ^whether to avoid 
prosecution, or upon the conviction of his own mind, 
is not certain, — he determines that the views of the 
philosophic few must not be spread among the mul- 
titude, who are still to have their tutelary deities. 
In this he appears to have varied somewhat from 
his master Socrates, who conversed with persons of 
all classes, and endeavored to spread his opinions 
among the tradesmen and peasants of Attica, no less 
than among the noble and the rich. 

In regard to what is technically called ontology, or 
the science of what exists ; — he considered ideas as 
a kind of emanation from objects, which thus became 
matters of sense to us: we having no means of ex- 
amining the object itself, but only the idea which is 
impressed on the sensorium : but as these are views 
which are of httle import to matters of common life, 
it would be foreign to the purpose of this work to 
enter further into them. 

The school of Plato, or as it is more generally 
termed, of the Academy, was carried on after his 
death by his nephew Speusippus, a man much in- 
ferior to his uncle both in talent and conduct ;* and 
after him by Xenocrates, whose slow parts had made 
Plato call him his donkey; but whose unspotted 
virtue threw into his teaching a persuasive force 
which was better than brilliancy. There is a pleas- 
ing anecdote recorded of this, which, though often 
repeated, should not be omitted here. One morning 
— for the school of Xenocrates was open early — 
whilst the philosopher was lecturing, Polemon, a 

* Diog. Laert., in vit. Speusipp. 



PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 51 

young and gay Athenian, crowned with roses and 
his robes disordered, was reeling home from a sup- 
per party; — he saw the door open, and entered. Of 
course such a visitor drew all eyes^ and Xenocrates, 
changing his subject, turned his discourse to the 
beauty of virtue, and the degrading consequences 
of intemperance. Polemon, who probably came to 
scoff, remained to hsten: gradually his heart was 
moved ; — he stole his hand to his head and removed 
the garland; presently he composed his robe to a 
more decent fashion ; and by the time the philoso- 
pher had finished his lecture, he left the place sobered 
for ever.* From that time he emulated Xenocrates 
in temperance and virtue, and after his death suc- 
ceeded to his chair in the Academy. One more 
anecdote of Plato's donkey ere we leave him to the 
esteem and affection of the good. When called 
upon to give evidence in some trial, the oath was 
tendered to him as usual ; but the people with one 
accord exclaimed that it was an insult to tender an 
oath to him who knew not what untruth was : Xe- 
nocrates should not be sworn, for his affirmation was 
of more worth than the oath of any other man.t To 
this may be added that, when forming one of a depu- 
tation to Philip of Macedon, that monarch declared 
that Xenocrates was the only one whom he had 
found inaccessible to a bribe.ij: Whilst the Academy 
was supported by such teachers, can we wonder at 
its fame? 

The doctrines of Plato remained nearly unaltered 
in the hands of his immediate successors, but under 
Arcesilaus, the friend of Grantor, which latter 
occupied the chair after Polemon, a change was 



* Val. Max., vi. 9. Diog. Laert., lib. iv., ^ 16, 
t lb., ^ 7. 



'X lb., § 



52 PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 

introduced, and the saying of Socrates that his whole 
wisdom consisted in knowing that he knew nothing, 
was enlarged into a maxim of the school. The 
skeptic philosophy of Pyrrhon, who doubted of all 
things,* was then gaining celebrity, and the Aca- 
demy under Arcesilaus seems to have approximated 
to this sect so far as to deny that man's reason is 
capable of attaining to complete certainty on any point. 
The character of Arcesilaus himself probably tended 
to this change, for far from following the example of 
his great predecessors, this philosopher disgraced 
his great talents by a hcentious life, and the notion 
that right and wrong might be a matter of doubt, 
was a convenient tenet for such a man. He died of 
a frenzy caused by excessive intoxication, at the 
age of seventy-five ;t and was succeeded by Lacydes, 
w^ho following in his steps, died of a stroke of palsy 
from the same cause. :j: 

Carneades made a yet farther innovation on the 
doctrines of Plato ; and held that all truth had a 
certain degree of error attached to it so intimately, 
and resembling it so closely, that there was no cer- 
tain method for deciding between them ; on which 
account a full assent to any opinion should be with- 
held. Cicero, who appears to have admired the 
writings of Carneades, and the doctrines of the Aca- 
demy as taught by him, and afterwards by Antiochus, 
tells us that the object of this suspension of judgment 
^v:as, to elicit the truth by calm discussion; to show, 
e. g., not that the gods did not exist, but that the 

* This philosopher was so serious in his doubts of the reality 
of things, that he never turned aside to avoid any obstacle, be 
it what it might, and was only saved from danger by his more 
sane friends, who, knowing his fancy, were wont to follow him 
in his walks. Diog, Laert., lib. ix. § 62. 

t Diog. Laert., lib. iv. § 44. t lb., ^ 61. 



PLATO AND THE ACADEMY. 53 

stoics had not proved that they did :* a system which 
Cicero follows up himself in his philosophical trea- 
tises where he gives the tenets of the different 
schools, and points out the weak parts in their argu- 
ments with much impartiality. In morals Carneades 
taught that the ultimate end of existence was " to 
enjoy natural principles,"! a phrase so obscure that 
it makes any further discussion of his doctrine on 
this head quite hopeless. He was a man of acute 
perceptions, and a clever lecturer and disputant ;J 
but Greek Philosophy was no longer what it had 
been in the hands of its earlier teachers. It was 
now mixed up with the arts of the sophists, and had 
lost the earnestness and reality given to it by men 
who look to great objects, and who, instead of aiming 
merely at a reputation for cleverness, sought to con- 
fer a lasting benefit on mankind. 

* Cic. de Nat. Deor., 1. i. c. 2. 

t Frui principiis naturalibus. Cic. de Fin., 1. ii. c. 11. 

t Diog. Laert. in vit. Cam. 



IV. 
THE CYRENAIC AND CYNIC SECTS. 

Two other schools of philosophy, if they may so 
be called, arose after the death of Socrates : the Cyre- 
naic and the Cynic. At the head of the first was 
Aristippus, a hearer, but hardly to be called a disciple 
of the martyred sage. He was a man of luxurious 
habits,* and taught that sensual pleasure was the 
great object of life: but human nature loves not de- 
gradation, and this part of his system scarcely out- 
lived him, but gave way to the tenet, that comfort 
was the great object of existence, and that, therefore, 
when life was become a source of uneasiness, it was 
well to quit it. Perhaps this alteration in the Cyre- 
naic doctrine may have been owing to Arete, the 
daughter of Aristippus, who became a philosophical 
teacher, and was the instructor of her son, distin- 
guished from his grandfather of the same name by 
the sobriquet of ^vit^obibaxtoi, — mother-taught. As 
the Cyrenaic school soon sunk into obscurity, or rather 
was merged in the more flourishing one of Epicurus, 
it will not be needful to give a longer notice of it here. 

The Cynic sect, so called from the Cynosargos, a 
gymnasium where its first professors used to teach, 
was founded by Antisthenes, a devoted disciple of 
Socrates, who was wont every day to walk from 
Peirseus, where he resided, in order to listen to that 
excellent man's lessons of wisdom. After the death 

* See Xenoph. Mem., 1. ii. c. 1. Diog. Laert. in vit. Aristippi. 



THE CYRENAIC AND CYNIC SECTS. 55 

of his admired master, Antisthenes betook himself 
to a life of extraordinary and ostentatious austerity; 
and setting- at nought the ordinary comforts of life, 
devoted himself wholly to the reproof of vice and 
luxury, in one of the most vicious and luxurious 
cities of antiquity. Among other of his severe taunts, 
it is recorded that some young men from Pontus, 
having come to Athens, attracted by the fame of So- 
crates, just when that philosopher had suffered death; 
he assured them he would show them a wiser man 
than him whom they sought, and led them to Anytus 
the prosecutor, who was forced to take to flight before 
the indignation thus excited against him.* 

Diogenes of Sinope — whose name has become 
famous, and almost infamous, from a variety of lying 
tales, readily enough devised and repeated by those 
who wished to crush the daring of the philosophic 
party, or dreaded the stern morality it taught — 
was the scholar of Antisthenes, and so determined 
to be so, that when this latter, not wishing for pupils, 
treated him with harshness, and even threatened 
him with his staff, he replied, that "he would find 
no staff hard enough to drive him away;" and the 
stern Cynic was moved at last to receive him. Every 
one has heard of the tub of Diogenes, of his reply to 
Alexander, and of that monarch's observation in 
consequence; yet it appears probable that these are 
all fables of the same cast with the impurities attri- 
buted to the Cynics, whose extreme severity of life, 
joined to their contempt of all sensuality, gives the 
lie to the slander.f Diogenes is recorded to have 
been taken by pirates during a voyage, and sold in 

* Diog. Laert.,lib. vi. ^ 10. 

t For a farther examination into the chronological discre- 
pancies which refute these tales, see Brucker's Hist. Crit. Phil., 
De Secta Cynica. 



56 THE CYRENAIC AND CYNIC SECTS. 

the slave market in Crete, where he was bought by 
Xeniades, a Corinthian, who, when he had taken 
him home, finding him to be no ordinary man, set 
him free, and employed him as tutor to his children; 
in which capacity Diogenes acquitted himself so 
conscientiously, that Xeniades is said to have blessed 
the day that brought such a friend into his house. 

Among the scholars of Diogenes, Crates, a 
Theban, was the most famous: a man so highly 
respected, that he was the general composer of dif- 
ferences throughout Athens.* Of him, too, and his 
wife Hipparchia, many tales have been told, which 
are refuted by the general character of the man : 
they originated probably in the same causes which 
had subjected every one to slander whose life and 
doctrines ran counter to the general Hcentiousness, 
and who did not join in the prevailing superstition. 
Libertines hated the stern censor of vice ;— the people 
dreaded the loss of the sacrifices and the Dionysia. 

The Cynic sect appears rather to have instituted 
an especial mode of hfe, than a philosophical system; 
it was in fact, the mendicant order of philosophy ; 
and, like the mendicant orders of the Christian 
church, and all other ascetics who require a severity 
of hfe which nature opposes, after the first enthu- 
siasm was over, its professors degenerated, till in 
later times they became justly infamous. Crates 
was the master of Zeno of Cittieum, the founder of 
the Stoics. 

* Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil., Pars ii. lib. ii. c. 8. 



V. 
ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

B. c. 335 TO — ? 

Among the pupils of Plato, about the same time 
that Xenocrates was learning to grace his slow parts 
with the higher beauty of moral virtue, another young 
man was seen, whose disposition and appearance 
were the reverse of the other in all but that last, best 
ornament of man, the love of virtue. Aristoteles, 
the son of a physician of Stagira, a small town on the 
borders of Macedon, but then an orphan, and the 
inheritor of a large fortune, — at seventeen years of 
age entered the Academy. His talents soon attracted 
the notice of his discerning master, who, having jest- 
ingly compared the slow mental pace of Xenocrates 
to that of an ass, always needing the spur; now 
likened the acuteness of Aristoteles to the headlong 
speed of a horse, which requires a bridle to prevent 
him from running away.* He was of shght form 
and weak constitution, and was noted by his cotem- 
poraries for a more than ordinary attention to dress 
and ornament: but none of these things were any 
hindrance to his eager pursuit of science, which 
ceased not but with his life. During twenty years 
he was the pupil and friend of Plato, who was wont 
to call him "the mind of the Academy," and if he 
was not present, would exclaim, that " the audience 
was deaf, for the intellect was absent."! 



* Diog. Laert., lib. iv. ^ 6. 

t Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil., Pars ii, lib. ii. c. 7. 



58 ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

The connection of the young student's father, 
Nicomachus, with the court of Macedon, as physician 
to the king, .probably led to the notice bestowed upon 
him by Philip, who, on the birth of his son Alexan- 
der, is said to have written to Aristoteles, informin g 
him of the fact; and adding, " we thank the gods for 
their gift, but especially for bestowing it at the time 
when Aristoteles lives ; assuring ourselves, that edu- 
cated by you he will be worthy of us, and worthy of 
inheriting oar kingdom."* It does not, however, 
appear that this letter, if indeed it be genuine, drew 
him away from Athens ; for he did not commence 
his duties as preceptor until fourteen years after. 

When Speusippus succeeded to the chair of the 
Academy, after the death of his uncle Plato, Aristo- 
teles quitted Athens; disgusted, probably, at seeing 
the place of his admired master very inadequately 
filled. One of his fellow-pupils and friends had been 
Hermeias, a eunuch, and once a slave; but now raised 
to the sovereignty of Assus and Atarneus, two Greek 
cities of Mysia. In the latter of these cities Aristo- 
teles had passed some part of his youth, in the family 
of Proxenus, a citizen of that place ; and as we find 
Nicanor the son of Proxenus afterwards adopted by 
him, and made the heir of his property, so it is likely 
that motives of gratitude as well as friendship led 
him thither. The seizure and execution of Hermeias 
by the officers of Artaxerxes, made Aristoteles think 
it needful to provide for his own safety : he fled to 
Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos ; taking with him 
Pythias, the kinswoman of Hermeias, whom he there 
married. He passed two years in Lesbos, and here 
his wife died, leaving him an infant daughter. It 
was her dying wish that her bones might be placed 

* Aulus Gellius, cited by Gillies. 



ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 59 

beside those of her husband in the grave, and at his 
death, her request was scrupulously fulfilled. 

The wish of the Macedonian monarch that Aris- 
toteles should undertake the education of his son, 
was probably now reiterated; for, shortly after, he 
journeyed to the court of Philip, and became the 
honored preceptor of the young Alexander., During / 
eight years he executed the office with a care and^ * 
success which made his pupil the wonder of his own, 
and after ages : and, on the accession of that prince 
to the throne, he once more returned to Athens ; 
where, finding Xenocrates in possession of the Aca- 
demy, he opened a school of philosophy in a gymna- 
sium near the temple of the Lycian Apollo in the 
suburbs, and thence called the Lyceum ; and here, 
during thirteen years, he continued to teach his exact 
and profound philosophy. Whilst Alexander lived, 
his preceptor was respected ; but no sooner had death 
closed the career of that great monarch, than the kind 
of accusations formerly made against Socrates, were 
renewed against Aristoteles : the doctrines of his 
school were too pure for the prevaihng corruption, 
and a prosecution was commenced against him ; 
which, however, he avoided by removing to Chalcis 
in Euboea, saying that he was unwilling to afford the 
Athenians a second opportunity of sinning against 
philosophy. He did not long survive his voluntary 
banishment, and died at Chalcis, in his sixty-third 
year, about a year after.* 

The followers of Aristoteles were termed Peripa- 
tetics ; either, as some say, from his habit of convey- 
ing his lessons to his royal pupil in conversation 
while walking; or because his lectures in the Lyceum 

* For a more detailed account of this philosopher, see his life, 
prefixed to Dr. Gillies' translation of his Ethics and Politics. 



60 ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

were so delivered. His writings have come down 
to us in a very imperfect state; for after having 
passed into the hands of his scholar Theophrastus, 
with the rest of his library, they were left by that 
philosopher in turn to his own pupil Neleus, who, 
carrying the whole with him to Scepsis, a town of 
Troas, left this most valuable collection to his heirs, 
with his other property. These, being unlettered 
men, knew not the value of this bequest, but hearing 
that the King of Pergamus was collecting a library, 
and fearing that they should be robbed of their books, 
they concealed them in a dark vault, where they re- 
mained undiscovered for many generations ; till at 
last they were sold for a large sum to Appellicon of 
Athens, whose library was seized and transmitted to 
Rome by Sylla, when that city fell into his hands. 
At Rome, in the days of Cicero, the writings of Aris- 
toteles could be appreciated ; and Andronicus of 
Rhodes, a philosopher then residing there, undertook 
the task of editing them in the best manner which 
their mutilated state permitted :^ for it appears that 
it was only a copy of the original which Sylla had 
possessed himself of. Probably the original had been 
too far decayed when it came into the hands of Apel- 
licon, to invite its preservation ; for Strabo observes 
that he was a book collector merely, not a philoso- 
pher. 

The writings of Aristoteles appear originally to have 
embraced the whole round of human knowledge in 
those days, but neither the military power of Rome 
nor the sway of the emperors was favorable to the 
progress of philosophy, and Christianity soon raised 
itself on the ruins of all three ; and, when, after the 
period of harassing warfare and barbarian invasion 

* Plutarch, in vit. Syllte. 



ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 61 

had passed away, his works were re-discovered in 
later times; his logic won the most attention. In 
this he reduced argument to a regular form; and 
though we may now doubt if this form be so widely 
applicable as was at first supposed, no one can deny 
its excellence as a mental exercise ; for nothing better 
shows the absurdity of a false argument than a syllo- 
gism;* and though upwards of two thousand years 
have elapsed since their death, we have not yet found 
a better guide in the art of reasoning than Aristoteles, 
or in mathematics than Euclides : — no small praise 
to the old philosophers of Greece. 

■ Like Cicero in after times, he addressed his chief 
work on moral duties to his son Nicomachus, the 
fruit of a second marriage, who seems to have been 
a child when his father died. Like the great Roman 
moralist, too, his precepts, being founded on the im- 
mutable law of God, written in man's heart from the 
beginning, have a striking resemblance, or rather, 
are in many cases identical with those of Christianity. 
The following rule for judging of our proficiency in 
virtue is such as Christ himself might have spoken. 
" The sign of our habitual state of mind," says he, 
" is the pleasure or pain which we have in our ac- 
tions: he who withdraws from corporeal pleasures 
with a feeling of satisfaction in so doing, is really and 

* A syllogism is the result of an argument, condensed into 
two propositions, called the major and the minor, and the con- 
clusion resulting from them. As " God is self-existent, but what 
is self-existent must be one, therefore God is one." Here we 
have the last result of a long series of argument, brought before 
us in a brief and tangible form, and if either the one proposition 
or the other can be impugned, it vitiates the conclusion. An 
argument, therefore, may be reduced to a series of syllogisms ; 
for every fresh step made, admits of being reduced to this form. 
Those who wish to know more of the abstruser works of Aris- 
toteles, will find an able analysis of them in Dr. Gillies' work 
already referred to. 



62 ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

wisely temperate ; he who does so, but grieves at it, 
is still a voluptuary at heart."* It would be im- 
possible in this small work to quote abundance of 
passages which breathe no less admirable sentiments: 
it will be easier to point out the very few points where 
the heathen falls behind the Christian moralist. 
With regard to the immortality of the soul he seems 
to have entertained less clear notions than Plato even, 
and was far behind Socrates : his idea of liberality is 
of habits bordering on ostentation ; and his estimate 
of slaves, whom he calls merely "living tools," and 
of women, whom he places not many degrees beyond 
them, is far, far indeed below that of the Apostle who 
proclaims that before God " there is neither male nor 
female, bond nor free." Yet we can hardly blame 
the heathen, without throwing a quadruple load on 
the shoulders of the so-called Christian of modern 
times, who, with all the hght of that Gospel which 
eighteen hundred years ago preached peace and 
good-will to the whole human race, has still left many 
a pariah caste, uncared for by the laws, or marked 
only by their stinging severity. 

In his Politics, Aristoteles is far more practical 
than Plato, whose notions on government he criti- 
cises with much good sense. But his own views 
are not unobjectionable ; and the faults in his Ethics, 
already mentioned, show themselves with double 
force when the abstract notion takes form and hkeli- 
hood in the regulation of a state. Acknowledging 
that the slave population formed the weak point in 
every country that he was acquainted with; ac- 
knowledging that for the most part they were the 
natural enemies of their lords ; he does not seem to 
have been able to discover that such a system must 

* Aristot. Eth. ad Nichom., lib. ii. c. 2. 



ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 63 

be radically bad. On the contrary, imputing the 
fauhs of slaves to their kind of employment, he for- 
bids his citizens to undertake any industrial labors; 
thus perpetuating, as far as in him lay, a system of 
idle tyrants, supported by the industry of numerous 
enemies, kept within the bounds of obedience only 
by severity. Yet his clear and argumentative mind 
saw the contradictions in reasoning which his own 
system involved, and he states them fairly. "If," 
he says, " a slave be capable of any virtues, wherein 
does he differ from a free man ? If we say he is 
not, and yet allow him to be a man, and consequently 
endued with reason, the conclusion seems absurd. 
The same difficulty occurs with regard to women 
and children : and yet how can one party be formed 
to obey and the other to rule, if both are by nature 
capable of the same virtues?"* Yet though seeing 
the absurdity, prejudice prevailed over reason, even 
in his powerful mind, and he concludes at last, that 
slaves, women, and children, are incapable of the 
virtues, which, in their capacity of man, generically, 
he had already acknowledged to form part of their 
very nature. A weakness hardly to have been ex- 
pected from the inventor of the syllogism. 

In his natural philosophy he falls behind some of 
the older philosophers of Greece, and argues against 
their opinions in a way that was scarcely to be ex- 
pected from a man of his acute perceptions : but he 
seems to have bewildered himself in his own logic, 
which, though it detects the fallacies of an argument 
when there are right premises to go upon, does not 
suffice if these are. wanting. Thus, he conceives 
that he refutes Thales' opinion, that "the earth floats 
in the air as a piece cf wood does in the water," — 

* Polit., lib. i. c. 8. 



64 ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

by saying, that "the earth is specifically heavier than 
the air, and, therefore, it cannot so float :"* and he 
endeavors to overthrow the opinion of Pythagoras, 
that the centre is occupied by a globe of fire, round 
which the planets move ; by showing that the power 
of gravitation acts in angles which meet in the cen- 
tre of the earth, and this he takes as a proof that the 
earth is the centre of all things.! He comments 
severely on the atomic system of the Ionian and Ita- 
lian schools, insisting that everything, even if not 
actually so divided, is capable of division ad infini- 
tum ; and in every one of the above cases he brings 
forward a show of close argument, vitiated only by 
his ignorance of first principles, which, whilst devot- 
ing his attention to the forms of reasoning, he seems 
to have overlooked. In this respect he must yield 
to Democritus, who, after a life devoted to experi- 
mental philosophy, found out that his chief science 
consisted in knowing that he had not yet reached, 
aor could hope to reach the Truth. 

On the subject of the soul he confesses himself to 
be at a loss ; yet on this -point his reasoning is in 
nany parts just. Probably on points where human 
reason can never arrive at perfect certainty, he who 
;ets off by seeking an approximation only, byreject- 
ng error after error as it fails to bear the test of 
."ational inquiry, will approach nearer to it than he 
ivho sets off with the notion that he can reach at 
)nce the whole depth and height of knowledge ; a 
)osition which no human intellect ever yet attained. 
tt is to the scarcely embodied conceptions of some 
i^reat mind, expressed in the modest language of 
loubt, that the next age commonly owes its disco- 
^^eries, experimented upon and proved by men much 

* De Coelo, lib. ii. c. 13. t lb., c. 14. 



ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 65 

inferior to him who but dimly saw the form of truth 
in the distance, and pointed to the glorious vision. 
Thus it is that Anaxagoras, who only directed men's 
eyes towards the right point, was nearer to the truth, 
in many instances, than Aristoteles, who submitted 
the sublime conceptions of his predecessor to what 
he conceived to be logical and mathematical demon- 
stration ; forgetting that he himself had not sufficient 
facts to ground his arguments upon. He has, how- 
ever, rightly exposed the error of those who con- 
ceived the soul to be the cause of motion ; for this, 
he says, is common to the lowest grades of animals 
as well as the highest, and it would be a daring 
stretch of imagination which would give a soul to 
an oyster : he has rightly shown that in plants even, 
there is vegetative life, and concludes, therefore, that 
the human soul must be something apart from this 
vegetative and sensitive life : but the defective state 
of anatomical science here stopped him short, and in 
his farther progress he argues on false premises. 
Finally, having come to the conclusion, that the soul 
is as distinct from the body as the sight is from the 
pupil of the eye* — an immeasurable distinction then, 
when the properties of the nerves were not known 
— he leaves the great question, which is the first 
and the last with every thinking man, unanswered. 
Whether the soul is, or is not immortal, was felt, 
not argued by the elder sages ; and their feehngs 
led them right, even when their reasonings carried 
no weight. 

It would be vain to attempt to follow the extensive 
researches of the great Stagirite in the compass of a 
few pages. Those who are able to read his works 
will find their labor well rewarded ; those who are 

* De Anim., lib. ii. c. 1. 



66 ARISTOTELES AND THE PERIPATETICS. 

not, will at least here learn to give duf honor to one 
of those master minds that are sent into the world 
from time to time, to -influence the destiny of their 
fellow men. 



VL 

ZENO AND THE STOICS, 

B. C. 310? TO— ? 

Zeno, whose name has long been famous as the 
founder of the Stoic sect of philosophy, was the son 
of a rich merchant of Cittieum, a Phoenician colony 
in the island of Cyprus. He is said to have devoted 
his attention to the Socratean doctrines very early; 
hut his future fame as the head of a sect was pro- 
bably the result of an accident. He put to sea with 
a cargo for Athens, and either landed, or was ship- 
wrecked off Peirseus. On going into the town he 
entered a bookseller's shop, and taking up the second 
book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, after a short time 
he was so struck with it, that he asked the booksel- 
ler where such men were to be found now? At that 
moment, Crates the Cynic was passing, and the man 
pointed to him, and bade the stranger ask him, if 
he wished to know. Zeno took the bookseller's 
hint, and became a disciple of Crates: but there was 
something so revolting in the utter contempt for all 
the lesser decencies of life which formed a part of 
the Cynic's doctrine, that he never could entirely 
reconcile himself to their discipline; and Crates hav- 
ing taken rough measures to cure him of his squeara- 
ishness,* his scholar forsook him in disgust, and 

* He gave him an earthen pot of boiled lentils to carry through 
the Cerameicus : which was like sending a gentleman in our 
own days, on such an errand, past the club houses in Pall Mall 
and St. James' Street. Zeno strove to hide the pan under his 



b» ZENO AND THE STOICS. 

became a pupil of Stilpo the Megarian, who was 
either a disciple of Euclides, the assiduous hearer of 
Socrates, or at least belonged to that school. Stilpo, 
like most of those who had imbibed the Socratean 
doctrines, despised the polytheism and idolatry of 
the age, and one day unguardedly expressed his opin 
ion that the statue of Minerva was not a god : for 
this he was cited before the Areopagus, and though 
he defended himself in the only way that such a 
charge could be met, by saying that he had spoken 
truly, for according to their own showing it was not 
a god but a godidess, he could not escape banishment 
from Athens for his irreverence. It was probably 
in consequence of his leaving the place, that Zeno, 
after having remained ten years in his school,* sought 
a new master in the Academy, where Polemon then 
presided. 

Having thus prepared himself by studying under 
all the most famous masters for many years, he at 
length undertook to found a new sect himself; and 
as all the usual places of philosophical resort were 
already occupied, he took possession of the party- 
colored colonnade or Stoa, so termed from the paint- 
ings which decorated its walls. From this place of 
meeting his followers were called Stoics. Here he 
taught what he wished to be considered as a new 
system ; yet as his predecessors had, in most things, 
approached very near the truth, there was not much 
room for novelty, and Cicero expressly asserts that 
Zeno was rather an inventor of new terms, than 
a discoverer of new things ;t and professes himself 

robe ; which Crates seeing, broke it with his stick ; so that the 
pottage ran down the legs of his mortified scholar. Diog. Laert., 
lib. vii. <§ 3. 

* Diog. Laert., lib. vii. % 2. 

t Cic. de Fin., lib. iii. c. 2. 



ZENO AND THE STOICS. 69 

unable to find any good reason why he should have 
dissented from the early masters of the Academy.* 
In his life, this philosopher was self-denyingt and 
unostentatious; and the severe observations which 
have been made upon this sect were probably more 
deserved by his successors than himself. It is a 
fault of judgment when we impute to any man opin- 
ions which do not square with his life; for it is 
much more possible that he may express himself 
ill, or that we may misunderstand him, than that 
what is truly believed should not influence the con- 
duct. If, therefore, we can draw immoral or false 
consequences from a doctrine, which are not disco- 
verable in the Hfe of the first promulgator, it is quite 
clear that /le did not perceive those consequences; 
and we may question his logic, but not his intention. 
"By their fruits ye shall know them," was the rule 
of One who assuredly knew human nature well. 
Whatever, then, were the contradictions and false 
consequences in the doctrines of Zeno, it is most 
probable that his own mind was influenced by the 
sublimer part of them ; and that he had overlooked 
those discrepancies which were so much animad- 
verted on by his opponents. Few of the philosophers 
of antiquity had the excellent judgment of Socrates, 
who, measuring justly in his own capacious mind 
the defective state of the natural sciences in his age, 
at once abandoned the study as affording no chance 
of arriving at the truth, — professed that his know- 
ledge consisted in knowing his own ignorance, and 
enforced nothing but what, thanks to the very con- 



* Cic. de Fin., lib. iv. c. 2. 

t It became a proverbial expression to describe a man of 
singularly correct and abstemious life, to say that he was " more 
temperate than Zeno the philosopher." Diog. Laert., lib. vii. 

7 



70 ZENO AND THE STOICS. 

stitution of nature, — must be discovered by every 
deep thinker: i. e., the existence of a First Cause, 
and the duties and hopes resulting from this one 
piece of true science. Had Zeno stopped here, his 
teaching would have been more useful, and not 
open to animadversion ; but he lost himself in the 
mazes of natural philosophy, whilst endeavoring to 
tell more than he knew. In the first steps of his 
system there is a wonderful resemblance to the He- 
brew doctrine, which some of the early Christian 
Fathers assert Plato to have borrowed from Moses,* 
and which Zeno appears to have taken from Plato ; 
for he evidently was unable, to reason logically upon 
it himself. 

According to Zeno, then, " There is One God, 
Mind, Fate, or Jove, known also by other names. 
This God in the beginning, being alone and self-ex- 
isting, changed the substance of the air into water, 
and as the living seed is contained in the foetus, so 
he, being the life-giving and efficient reason (?i,oyo$) 
of the world, placed his Spirit in the waters to be the 
cause of the generation of all things ; and thus were 
created the four elements, out of which all things 
were made, and into which they will again be re- 
solved."! We next find him arguing, that the 
world, or universe, is itself the only Deity, upon the 
following very insufficient and illogical grounds. 
" Whatever is possessed of reason is better than 
what is not possessed of reason : — there is nothing 
better than the world, therefore the world is pos- 
sessed of reason. In the same manner it may be 
proved that the world is wise, and eternal ; for what 
is possessed of these qualities is better than what is 



* See Clem. Alex. Strom, passim, 
t Diog. Laert., lib. vii. § 136. 



ZENO AND THE STOICS. 71 

not possessed of them ; — but there is nothing better 
than the world, hence it is clear that the world is 
God."* The man who was unable to discern such 
palpable contradictions as the above in his own tenets, 
must have been strangely wanting in logical pre- 
cision ; and accordingly we find the same illogical 
conclusions, mixed with noble thoughts occasionally, 
throughout the Stoical system. In some parts the 
Orphic doctrine is revived in its worst form, as 
when it is asserted that God, being in all things, 
these things may be venerated and worshiped as 
gods,t and thus such deifications as fortune, honor, 
fear, &c., may be allowed; nay, even vices may be 
thus worshiped, as effecting some good purpose in 
the world. 

It is not easy to follow arguments so utterly in- 
consequential as -those of the Stoic philosophy : it 
may, therefore, suffice to say, that the stars, sun, 
moon, &c., are held to be self-moved deities : that 
Providence is only a term to express the rational 
foresight of these revolving beings, and that to talk 
of any existing Providence, exterior to them, would 
be like supposing the Athenian state to have a gov- 
ernment when the people were taken away: J that 
the universe is God :§ and then, in defiance of all 
consistency, we find : "God, who is the maker of all 
things, and has formed them from his own exist- 
ence, who after a time dissolves, and again re-makes 
them, is self-existent and incorruptible|| — God being 
eternal has created all things^ — God is an immortal 
being, rational, perfect ; ruhng the universe and all 
things in it, as the Maker and Father of all: but he 

* Cic. de Nat. Deor., lib. ii. c. 8. 

t lb., c. 29. t lb. 

<5i Diog. Laert,, lib. vii. ^ 148. 

. il lb., § 137. IT lb., ^ 134. 



72 ZENO AND THE STOICS. 

is not in human form."* That acute men, as many 
of the Stoics are known to have been, should have 
gone on uttering such contradictions for three or four 
centuries, appears almost unaccountable: one lesson, 
however, it may teach us, which is not altogether 
needless at any time : it shows the power of preju- 
dice on minds otherwise cultivated, and is a good 
instance of the danger of receiving dogmas upon 
authority, Avithout examination. 

The moral doctrines of the Stoics are better known 
than their theology and physics. They taught that 
the great object, ih^o?, of man's existence, was, to 
live according to the tendencies of his nature ; these 
being exhibited in the instinctive affection towards 
offspring, social ties, &c.; and the duties springing 
out of such relations were considered as forming 
part of these tendencies. Reason being the noblest 
part of our nature, this of course claimed the most 
regard, and he who lived according to reason, giving 
due attention to the duties springing from the tend- 
encies of our nature, was a happy man. If, then, 
happiness consists in living virtuously, there can be 
no pain but that of living viciously ; therefore bodily 
pain is no evil ; and the virtuous man on some oc- 
casions sets it at nought, and finds < pleasure in so 
doing. But the Stoic's virtuous man had no induce- 
ment to virtue : he was not promised immortahty, 
for the soul was held to be of corruptible materials, 
and Zeno himself is said to have considered it mere- 
ly as a warm breath.* The high motive given by 
the teachers of the Academy, and the great men 
who preceded them, was therefore wholly wanting ; 
and the Stoic who called on men to set pleasure at 

* Diog. Laert., Jib. vii. ^ 147. 
t lb., ^ 157. 



ZENO AND THE STOICS. 73 

nought, and spent a life of painful sacrifices, could 
neither offer any sufficient compensation, nor plead 
the innate dignity of the undying soul ; nay, could 
only have gained converts at all in consequence of 
an instinctive feeling of things which they either 
disavowed, or perplexed, in their system of philoso- 
phy. It offered no complete solution of the great 
problem of man's existence ; but the mind caught at 
the one great principle of the Eternal Maker of all 
things, alone in his might and his goodness, and/eZ^ 
the consequences of this one tenet even whilst deny- 
ing them. 

Among the slanders heaped on each other by the 
rival sects of Stoics and Epicureans, it is not easy to 
distinguish the truth ; but by the rule already laid 
down, as the lives of the two founders of these fam- 
ous sects were equally virtuous, though their dispo- 
sitions were different, we shall probably be nearest 
the truth by disregarding both. One tenet, how- 
ever, which is imputed to Zeno and his followers, 
seems in some degree proved by the conduct of 
Cato,* one of the most famed of the Stoic sect. They 
are said to have taken the doctrine of a community 
of women from Plato's most visionary work, the 
"Republic;" which even his own better sense re- 
jected in his later work on the same subject, i. e., 
his " Laws." It was only in times when females 
were so lowered from their human dignity by igno- 
rance, as to be viewed in the hght of a property 
merely, that such a doctrine could have found place : 
but when such a man as Plato could so speculate, — 
when such a man as Aristoteles could doubt that wo- 
men and slaves were capable of rational and virtuous 
conduct, it is not wonderful that Zeno, never an ori- 

* See Plutarch's Life of Cato of Utica. 



74 ZENO AND THE STOICS. 

ginal thinker, should have been led away by their 
example. 

In anatomy the Stoics seem to have made some 
progress,* and to have made a good use of it, by 
arguing the existence of the Deity from the curious 
contrivances in the construction of man's body. The 
nerves, however, are by them supposed to originate 
in the heart, which shows that they must have traced 
their course very carelessly. It is from this ancient 
notion, probably, that we derive the expression so 
common still, of — " I have not the heart to do it." — 
The course of the blood seems to have been tolerably 
well understood: so well, that it is not very clear 
why its circulation should not have been so also. 

The astronomy of the Stoics partook of all the 
faults of the times; and of their logic and mode of 
arguing a sufficient specimen has been given. In 
manners they affected much of the severity of the 
Cynics, though they seasoned it with more of gravity 
and decorum; and, to pursue the comparison with 
later times, if the Cynics were the mendicant order, 
we may reckon the Stoics the Quakers of philosophy. 

* Cic. de Nat. Deor., lib. ii. c. 55. 



VII. 
EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

B. C. 307 TO — ? 

Zeno had not been long established as the founder 
of a new sect, when another teacher made his ap- 
pearance at Athens, whose doctrines were destined 
to have a larger and longer influence in the world 
than could have been expected from his parentage 
and education. Epicurus was the son of Neocles, 
an Athenian of good family,* but much reduced in 
circumstances, who had, in consequence, joined the 
colonists who were sent to Samos after that country 
had submitted to the arms of Athens in the time of 
Pericles. It was in the birthplace of Pythagoras, 
therefore, that the young Epicurus received his first 
instruction. This, however, amounted to but httle, 
for his mother was reduced by their poverty to go 
from house to house as a dealer in lustrations and 
charms, and in these expeditions the boy accompa- 
nied her, in order to read the lustratory verses ; at 
other times he assisted his father in the humble 
business of a schoolmaster. The accidental reading 
of some of Democritus' treatises is said to have first 
given him a taste for philosophy. 

At eighteen years of age he visited Athens, but 
whether he profited by the opportunity thus afforded 
him of enjoying the instruction of Xenocrates, or of 

* Diog. Laert., lib. x. '^ 1. Peisistratus had sprung from the 
same stock. See Plutarch in Solone. 



76 EPICURltS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

Aristoteles, then established at Chalcis in Euboea, is 
very uncertain : he is said in after times to have de- 
dared that he was self-taught.* The distracted state 
of political affairs after the death of Alexander, drove 
him from Athens, and, four or five years after his 
departure from Samos, he joined his father at Colo- 
phon, in lonia.t Here he remained nearly ten years, 
after which he passed his time partly at Mitylene, 
and partly at Lampsacus, till, at the age of thirty-five, 
or as some say, thirty-seven, he returned to Athens, 
now restored to freedom by Demetrius Pohorcetes, 
and having purchased a house and garden for eighty 
minas,:}: he there opened his school of philosophy. 
Some friends and disciples seem to have followed him 
from Lampsacus, and other places ; among these Me- 
trodorus was the chief ; and they, with some others, 
seemed to have formed a Httle society, congregated 
under the roof of their teacher ; whose manners had 
something so captivating, that his pupils adored, 
rather than learned of him. Of Metrodorus it is re- 
corded that he had never quitted him but once, and 
that only for six months, in order to revisit his friends 
at Lampsacus. Epicurus rewarded his faithful at- 
tachment by as faithful a friendship, for Metrodorus 
dying seven years before his teacher, this latter took 
the charge of his children, and provided for them in 
his will.t 

It is probable that the disgust which the habits of 
the Cynics, and the sternness of the Stoic philosophy 
caused to the gentle nature and weak health of Epi- 
curus, first led him to review the systems which had 
sprung up before and since the death of Socrates. 

* Diog. Laert., lib. x. <j. H- 
t See Gassend., De Vit. etMor. Epicuri. 
t About ^£320 of modern English money. 
§ Diog. Laert., ^ lib. x. §§ 19, 20. 23. 



EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. T7 

He is said to have passed over the later ones, as less 
worth his notice, and to have returned with especial 
respect to that of Anaxagoras and his pupil Arche- 
laus ; so that he may be considered as a pupil both of 
the Italian and Ionic schools, though in many things 
differing from both. From the Ionic and Pythago- 
rean sects he took the atomic doctrine, adhering, how- 
ever, most to that form of it which was taught by 
Democritus, whose books he lectured from :* — from 
the Cyrenaic sect he borrowed the tenet, that the 
object of life was pleasure, which he purified at the 
same time, by specifying that it was mental pleasure 
that he intended; and from Anaxagoras and Socrates 
he seems to have taken the high tone of morality,! 
and the disregard for the vulgar superstitions, which 
distinguish his writings, of which, however, the larger 
part has unfortunately perished. 

The Stoics, jealous of the new teacher, whose doc- 
trines and conduct had much of the gentleness which 
afterwards characterized Christianity, set themselves 
in illiberal opposition to him, and endeavored, by 
slandering his private conduct, to throw discredit on 
his tenets. They affected to consider his doctrine, 
that " pleasure is the summum bonum, pain the great 
evil of man," as one of immoral tendency; and with- 
out regarding his real doctrine, or his real life, they 
represented the little society assembled in his pleasant 
house and garden, as a set of worthless debauchees 
and courtesans, and the teacher himself as the leader 
in every kind of licentiousness. In order to give 
color to these representations they forged letters of 
the most infamous description, which were ascribed to 
him and his friends ;% and others have come down to 

* Diog. Laert., lib. x. % 4. 

+ In his letter to Menoeceus. Diog. Laert., lib. x. 

i Diog. Laert., lib. x. ^ 3. 

8 



78 EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

US, which, though not particularized as forged, hear 
such internal marks of falsehood in their disagree- 
ment with known dates, that we may safely add them 
to the list of the calumnies invented by the opponents 
of his philosophy, in order to throw discredit on the 
captivating teacher who thinned the numbers in their 
schools, by attracting them to his own. 

It is worthy of remark that every system of philo- 
sophy which arose in Greece, found converts among 
the female sex also, notwithstanding the hindrances 
thrown in their way by the prejudices of society, and 
the ignorance in which that sex was kept by the 
domestic usages of the country. It is not very 
creditable to human nature that then and there, as 
well as till very lately in England, almost every 
woman who stepped beyond the littlenesses of life, so 
as to fit herself for the greater duties which fall to 
her lot as a citizen of the state, was made the object of 
scorn and calumny by a large portion of both sexes. 
The minds which could surmount such obstacles must 
therefore have been of no ordinary calibre, and their 
cowardly enemies had tact enough to know that it 
was useless to deny the talent which they envied ; 
but it is easy to whisper away the purity of a woman's 
reputation, and this plan was pursued with unusual 
success. The consequence has been that names too 
famous in science and literature to be forgotten, have 
come down to us with the slander of those days so 
closely attached to them, that it requires all the acute- 
ness of criticism to separate truth from falsehood, and 
do justice to these much mahgned persons. Every 
one has repeated the tale of the wonderful learning 
of the courtesans of Ionia and of Athens : — few have 
taken the pains to consider that the two characters 
are incompatible both physically and morally ; and 
still fewer have examined remaining records enough 



EPIGtJRUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 79 

to show by comparison of dates and circumstances, 
that certainly some of tiiese celebrated women, and 
most probably all, were but the victims of a kind of 
ill-nature which even in this age is not wholly un- 
known. 

Among the disciples of Epicurus were many fe- 
males, some of them the wives of the philosopher's 
friends, as Themista, whose learning became pro- 
verbial ; and others, perhaps students under them, 
who devoted themselves to science, as Leontium, 
Philsenis, &c., who were stigmatized by the unscru- 
pulous Stoics, as women of light character ; and 
supposititious letters and writings Avere attributed to 
them in order to support the slander.* Yet Leon- 
tium is recorded to have written elegantly and learn- 
edly against Theophrastus ;t no light undertaking, 
and one not to be accomplished by a person whose 
time was devoted to other occupations so incompati- 
ble with severe study. Even the persons who have 
been so ready to report the accusations of licentious- 
ness and gluttony against Epicurus and his pupils, 
have contradicted themselves, often in the same 
page, by noticing the frugal diet of the philosopher 
and his friends, their close application to study, and 
the continually increasing infirmity of health, which 
kept the former for many years a prisoner in his bed, 
from which he could not rise without assistance. His 
request to a friend to send him some "cheese to add 
to his bread occasionally, when he was inclined to 
fare sumptuously,"^ shows sufficiently what were 
the delicacies which he was accused of setting daily 
on his table. 



* Gassend. de Vit. et Mor. Epicuri, lib. i, c. 8. Athen., Iviii. 
13. 

t Cic. de Nat. Deor., lib. i. c. 33. 
t Diog. Laert., lib. x., ^ 10. 



80 EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

It is not pleasant to trace and detect such a course 
of maKgnant slander ; but it is no more than a duty 
which every historian owes to calumniated indivi- 
duals ; for were the judgment of posterity always to 
conform to the prejudices of cotemporaries, the mo- 
tives for well-doing would, in many, be considerably 
lessened: among such, at least, as consider an ho- 
nest fame in this world as one of the rewards of a 
life spent in the performance of sometimes painful 
duties. It is still more unpleasant to find cotempo- 
rary prejudices carried on through successive gene- 
rations, and repeated by such men as Cicero, whose 
acute mind and habits of pleading ought to have led 
him to detect the truth. Yet even he, while repeat- 
ing the often told slanders, is obliged to confess that 
the death of Epicurus was marked by a calmness 
and patience amid the severest sufferings, more he- 
roic even than the self-sacrifice of Leonidas, or the 
fortitude of Epaminondas.* The gentle and affec- 
tionate disposition of the man is shown in his will, 
when he makes provision for the orphan children 
of his friend Metrodorus, and appoints guardians for 
them from among his other disciples ; to this he 
adds a request that his friends would meet once a 
month in memory of him, and leaves funds for de- 
fraying the expense of the entertainment. His plea- 
sant little residence he left to Hermachus, one of his 
disciples, and to his successors in the philosophical 
chair. 

No teacher ever enjoyed so long and affectionate a 
remembrance among his disciples as Epicurus. In 
the time of Cicero the ornament of cups, the impress 
of seals, the pictures in the hall of entertainment still 
represented the features of the honored founder of 

* Cic. de Fin., lib. ii. c. 30. 



EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 81 

the sect in the houses of his followers,* and the name 
and observance only became obsolete when all philo- 
sophical sects merged in the one great rule of Chris- 
tianity which this school closely resembled in many 
of its precepts. 

The Epicurean philosophy has been chiefly famed 
on account of its tenets with regard to the material 
universe. Epicurus received his earliest impres- 
sions in science from the works of Democritus, and 
there was much in the writings of that naturalist 
which must have been fascinating to a young mind. 
He adopted his views with regard to the eternity of 
matter, the infinitely numerous atomsf of which, eter- 
nally moving and floating in an infinite vacuum, form, 
b}^ their concretion, the different bodies of the mate- 
rial universe. These bodies, when dissolved, return 
to their primary atoms, but the sum of matter remains 
unchanged ; it always has been and always will be 
the same. J 

According to him there are three criteria of truth, 
i. e., sense ; anticipation (jtpoX'yj'^ts) ; and emotion 
(jtden^). Sense is the proper judge of material things, 
for, being wholly unreasoning, it can have no motive 
for deceiving us, and reports truly what it is con- 
scious of: 7tp67.7j'\'i?, i. e., the seizing on beforehand, 
is that comprehension by which unseen things have 
their representatives in the mind, as in memory, or 
abstract ideas of things; TtdOo^, i. e., whatever is pas- 
sively endured, may be reduced to two heads, — 
pleasure and pain. But beyond the actuality of body 
and space, nothing can be properly comprehended; 
because, if there be natures self-existing, we have 

* Cic. de Fin., lib. v. c. 2. 

t i. e., indivisible particles. 

X See his letter to Herodotus given by Diog, Laert., lib. x. 

8* 



82 EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

nothing analogous to enable us thoroughly to under- 
stand them.* Epicurus probably took this also 
from Democritus, who affirmed that the complete 
truth was hidden from men too deeply for him to 
have any hope of attaining it ; and this cautious 
mode of treating the subject perhaps was adopted, 
too, with a view of avoiding the fate of Anaxagoras, 
Socrates, and others, who had suffered for declaring 
too plainly that the gods of the people were no gods, 
and for endeavoring to introduce a more spiritual 
worship. 

Astronomy had been curbed in like manner, by 
the decree that new notions respecting the heavenly 
bodies were not to be promulgated, under pain of 
death; and we find Epicurus speaking no less cau- 
tiously on this head : so cautiously, indeed, that it 
would be difficult to get at his opinion, did not the 
very doubt expressed show that he was not fully 
convinced that the generally received system was 
the right one. The stars may be extinguished at 
their setting and rekindled at their rising ; or they 
may be obscured by the interposition of the earth 
during part of their revolution. The heavens may 
be carried round altogether, or the heavenly bodies 
may have a separate movement: they may be big- 
ger, or they may be less than they appear to us, &c.:t 
from all which nothing can be gathered further than 
that he either could not, or would not speak more 
plainly. 

With regard to morals Epicurus was much more 
explicit ; and in his letter to MencEceus he gives 

* Diog. Laert,, lib. x., § 40. There is a variation, however, 
in different copies. The above reading is given on the authority 
of Gassendi, whose diligence in drawing together all that could 
throw light on the history and doctrines of Epicurus is univer- 
sally acknowledged. 

t See his letter to Pythocles, Diog. Laert.j lib. x. 



EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 83 

his code at some length. " No one," he says, " ought 
to think himself too young or too old for philosophic; 
contemplation ; since it is the great business of man, 
to consider what is requisite to the living well : — 
happily as regards himself and worthily as regards 
his relations to society. And in the first place, as a 
needful constituent of'this knowledge, we must take 
care that, believing God to be an immortal and per- 
fectly happy Being, we attribute nothing to him that 
is inconsistent with these attributes. Thus, though 
there are gods, as appears evidently from our reason, 
yet they are not such as they are vulgarly esteemed 
to be. The following the opinion of the vulgar in 
this matter constitutes impiety, therefore, not the 
differing from them : for it is not the geyieral antici- 
pation or apprehension of the many respecting the 
gods that is false,, but the particulars of their opinion 
on this subject are so : for they conceive great evils 
to be caused by the bad among the gods, and what is 
advantageous, by the good." And here Seneca, 
though no Epicurean, enables us to fill up the rest 
of the system, by reproaching Epicurus with reve- 
rencing God only as a parent, to be honored and 
worshiped for his excellence, without thinking of 
any gain to be obtained by so doing.* " The wise 
man," continues Epicurus, " will not consider the 
loss of life an evil ; but as food is chosen for its 
quality rather than its quantity, so he will endeavor 
to make his hfe pleasant rather than long. It is need- 
ful to satisfy our physical wants in a certain degree, 
both for the sake of living in comfort, and in order to 
keep the body tranquil, so as to leave the mind free 

* " Deum, Epicure, vis videre colere, non aliter quam paren- 
tem ? . . . nulla spe, nulla pretio inductus, sed propter ejus ma- 
jestatem eximiam, supremamque naturam." Seneca de benef., 
lib, iv. c. 19. 



84 EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

from disturbance : for our endeavor should be to avoid 
suffering and perturbation ; since pleasure is the 
great object of hfe. But it is not every kind of plea- 
sure that will be sought by a wise man; for luxurious 
feasts are not needful to him who by temperance and 
exercise has made his bread and water sweet to his 
taste ; therefore, when I speak of pleasure as the 
summum bonum, I do not mean licentious pleasures : 
for he only enjoys a truly happy life, who examines 
his desires by the hght of sober reason, and deter- 
mines which ought to be gratified, which repressed. 
In short, no man can live happily who does not live 
wisely and justly, and no man can live wisely and 
justly without being happy : for virtue and happiness 
cannot be separated . Nay, were it possible, it would 
be better to live wisely and to be unhappy, than to 
be irrational and fortunate. One who acts on these 
principles hves among men as if he were already a 
god : he has nothing about him that resembles the 
brute animal, but though a man, he lives among the 
immortals."* 

Only one thing is wanting to the excellence of this 
system; but that one deficiency almost nullified it. 
Epicurus taught that death was annihilation ; and it 
is in vain that we preach the excellence of virtue if 
we have no other life to expect, where what we have 
learned to love and admire may be enjoyed. The very 
longing after moral perfection becomes a torture if we 
have no hope that it will ever be fully gratified ; for, 
though nothing can be truer than the position of Epi- 
curus, that virtue and happiness can never be sepa- 
rated, yet this truth is only fully apparent to the mind 
when it dares to look beyond this world for the com- 
pletion of its wishes. Then, indeed, the progress of 

* Ep. ad MenoBceum. Diog, Laert., lib. x. 



EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 85 

moral improvement is delight, for every step gained 
promises yet another, and another ; and death is only 
viewed as the removal of obstacles which delayed our 
onward course. The want of this stimulus in the 
Epicurean philosophy, made the admirable good 
sense and good feeling of the gentle founder of the 
sect unavailing ; and when a greater than Epicurus 
preached the hke doctrines, with the one great defi- 
ciency supphed as no unassisted human reason could 
have supplied it, the Epicureans had too generally 
forgotten the comment, and retained only the maxim 
that pleasure is the only good. " Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die," will generally be the 
termination of any system which rejects the tenet of 
the soul's immortality. 

After Epicurus jio other sect of importance sprung 
up among the Greeks ; though slight variations were 
made in the teaching of the Academy, and the Stoics 
spHt into factions, rather than sects, for the real differ- 
ences were not great. The Epicurean school kept 
its ground with less change than any other, and in 
the time of Plutarch even, the name of Metrodorus 
was authoritative among the disciples of that philo- 
sophy.* 

From Greece, the love of science spread to Rome, 
and Athens was to the rude people of that rising 
empire, what Paris once was to England and to the 
northern European nations. Greek was the fashion- 
able language, and Athenian philosophers were the 
fashionable tutors. The elder Cato, clinging to early 
prejudices, when Carneades, the then head of the 
Academy, was sent on a political mission to Rome, 
procured his dismissal, lest he should corrupt the 

* See Plutarch cont. Koloten. 



86 EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 

youth of the city; yet the old man, before his death, 
yielded to the universal impulse so far as to learn 
Greek himself;* and in spite of his warnings, the 
statesmen and warriors of the great repubhc became, 
for the most part, disciples of the Garden, the Stoa, 
or the Academy. Sylla too, though barbarian enough 
to cut down the groves of the Academy, amid the 
plunder of Athens brought home the writings of 
Aristoteles, which had so long been lost to the world; 
and finally, Greek philosophy found a voice in that 
most lucid of all writers, Cicero; who undertook to 
give his countrymen a kind of epitome of the doctrines 
of the different sects. Enough remains to us of these 
beautiful works to make the loss of any part of them 
most grievous. They are, or might be, in the hands 
of all ; it is, therefore, needless to notice them farther 
here. 

Cicero was nearly the last of that race of great men 
whom St. Paul so eloquently praises, "who having 
not the law, were a law unto themselves." He was 
too good for his cotemporaries, and was sacrificed to 
the profligacy of the times. The last preacher of 
righteousness had now left the stage, and A Mightier 
Voice, — though still and small, like that which fol- 
lowed the storm and the earthquake that shook Horeb 
to its foundations, — proclaimed the tidings of immor- 
tahty to mankind, and confirmed the hopes which so 
many of the wise and good had cherished as their 
dearest treasure, during a long period of suffering. 
Philosophy had done its work; — men longed for the 
TRUTH, and it was bestowed ; noble Athenians were 
among the first converts to Christianity; Platonic 
philosophers among its most fearless martyrs ; so 
truly had old Socrates fulfilled his mission, and taught 

* See Plutarch in Catone majore. 



EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 87 

men to contemn honors, wealth, or life, if they were 
to be bought by the sacrifice of principle. It is 
pleasant to see the affectionate remembrance with 
which these philosophic converts recur to the lessons 
of their early instructors, and we may draw thence 
a sure proof that the early Academy had faithfully 
executed its great charge, and become a true " school- 
master to bring men to Christ." 



THE END. 



SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 



EDITED BY A 



FEW WELL-WISHERS TO KNOWLEDGE. 



No. VII. 



CHRISTIAN 



DOCTBINE AND PRACTICE 



SECOND CENTURY. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA AND BLANCHARD. 
1846. 



thiladelphia: 

t. k. and p. &. collins, 

printers. 



CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE IN 
THE SECOND CENTURY. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Much has been said and written within the last 
few years on the subject of Primitive Christianity; 
and, as generally happens on all points in which 
men's interests are deeply concerned, party spirit 
has crept in, and created discord where it is most 
to be lamented. It is a subject of wonder to many, 
that a religion of peace should ever give rise to the 
fierce animosities which have so frequently dis- 
graced the history of the Church ; but we may no- 
tice that in matters of civil pohty, though they are 
the concern only of a few years, bloody disputes 
arise, notwithstanding that the Christian profession 
of the contending parties forbids any such outbreaks 
of ill-will towards our fellow-men. Can we wonder 
then, that when men's minds are so little disciplined 
in the true doctrine of Christianity, the same spirit 
which pervades their every-day intercourse should 
show itself on occasions where the feehngs are yet 
more strongly roused? The interests of eternity far 
surpass those of this perishable world; and the half 
disciple of Christ, who beheves in a future life, but 
has not studied the precepts of his master sufficiently 
to know how those interests will be best consulted, 
attaches himself to certain ceremonies or dogmata, 
as the keystones of salvation, and is proportionably 
angry with any one who seems endeavoring to pull 
1* 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

them down ; and thus the same lack of real Chris- 
tian duty and feehng which shows itself in the vio- 
lence of an election, is manifested also in the conten- 
tion upon a disputed dogma in religion. Truly might 
the Saviour say to his disciples in all ages, "Ye 
know not what spirit ye are of." 

It is not with any view to controversy that this 
httle work is published: on the contrary it has been 
the object of the writer to promote concord, by show- 
ing Christianity in the very garb she wore when 
conquering the world ; when she was so lovely that 
men died for her sake, and he w^ho came to gaze on 
the sufferings of the martyr, as at an idle spectacle, 
remained to share his fate, baptized, as it w^ere, with 
his blood. To restore such feelings, to show Chris- 
tians of all denominations in how many points they 
agree, and how very little they differ on any of those 
doctrines which a Catechist of the second century 
thought it needful to impress on the converts com- 
mitted to his teaching, is an object worth some pains : 
accordingly the present small tract is the product of 
the labor of many years, during which the compiler 
has carefully gone over the early Christian writers. 
He has found the views of Clement of Alexandria 
pervading the whole ; but has chosen him as the 
representative of the early Church, because he has 
taken a larger survey of the practical part of Chris- 
tianity than most of the writers which remain to 
us : and because, in these practical lessons, we see 
what was the mode of induction by which he ar- 
rived at the principles from which he afterwards 
deduced his precepts. A contrary practice has been 
frequently a source of error; it is therefore the 
more needful to draw attention to this mode of pro- 
ceeding. 

Christianity is not a written code of laws : Christ 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

left no sacred books ; he left no command to his 
Apostles to write any ; they were to teach the prin- 
ciples of a pure faith and a pure morality, but were 
left to accommodate to circumstances the superstruc- 
ture which was to be built on this foundation. When, 
therefore, we find a positive injunction in the writ- 
ings of the Apostles, our first step must be to inquire 
under what circumstances that injunction was given : 
the next, to consider what was the fundamental prin- 
ciple from which, under such circumstances, such a 
precept was deduced ; that fundamental principle, 
when we have arrived at it, not the injunction itself, 
is Christianity. Thus the command to " greet one 
another with a holy kiss," was deduced from the 
principle of universal love to our fellow-creatures, 
and the apostle enjoined a testimony of it, which 
was conformable to the habits of the age and country 
in which he wrote ; the fundamental principle of ex- 
tended benevolence is as important now as then, but 
the mode of testifying it is different: the precept is 
null, the principle is of eternal force. This is but 
one very obvious instance out of a multitude that 
might be given. 

It is from this misunderstanding of the mode by 
which we are to arrive at Christian doctrine, that 
most of the sects in the Church have arisen ; for the 
sectarian builds his opinions on special interpreta- 
tions of special texts, and his opponent argues on the 
same plan: neither of them appeals to great prin- 
ciples, and therefore the controversy is endless: since 
as long as we have no better medium than words 
framed for the natural wants of this world, to convey 
our notions relating to matters so wholly different, we 
shall never be able to impress our own full meaning 
on the mind of another: but were we once to go back 
to principles, which being the internal persuasions of 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

reason, will be felt in all minds alike, — at least in all 
that have the power of thinking and drawing a con- 
clusion, — we should find that most of these long dis- 
puted dogmata would fade away, and men would 
wonder why they had been at variance. 

Instead of taking a passage of St. Paul's Epistles, 
and endeavoring to make it a rule of faith, we should 
rather ask ourselves how was the great Apostle of 
the Gentiles situated when he wrote this? As, for 
instance when he says, "Beware lest any man spoil 
you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
rudiments of this world, and not after Christ," we 
ought to recollect the pecuhar state of philosophy m 
his days, devoted rather to idle questions than real 
science ; and conclude from thence, that the principle 
which he meant to enforce was, the founding our 
faith on sound knowledge, and not losing time over 
unavailing quibbles ; such as, when a man leads a 
horse by a halter, whether it is the man or the halter 
which leads the horse: for of this kind were the 
questions which the sophists of those days delighted 
to puzzle their auditory with. To conclude against 
the philosophy of a Herschell, because St. Paul had 
mentioned the word philosophy in a tone of disap- 
probation, would be a specimen of the above men- 
tioned narrow kind of adherence to the letter of the 
precept. The more reasonable mode of proceeding 
would rather be to ask ourselves, — had St. Paul lived 
in the nineteenth century, and visited this country, 
how would he have acted, and what mode of conduct 
would he have enjoined ? he, who professed himself 
to be "all things to all men, if by any means he 
might save some." Uncompromising as he was in 
all that related to the weightier matters of the law, 
how carefully does he avoid wounding lesser preju- 
dices ! " One believeth that he may eat all things. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

another who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that 
eateth despise him that eateth not: and let not him 
that eateth not, judge him that eateth, for God hath 
received him. Who art thou that judgest another's 
servant ? to his own master he standeth or faileth. 
Yea he shall be holden up, for God is able to make 
him stand. One man esteemeth one day above 
another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let 
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind : he 
that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; 
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he 
doth not regard it."* 

And here one word maybe permitted; — it shall 
be a short and a kind one — to the Anglo-Catholics 
of Oxford, and their opponents. Would St. Paul, 
were he now here, speak otherwise than in the pas- 
sage above quoted ? Why, then, should there be a 
dispute over such minor differences ? Learned and 
pious as the heads of the Anglo-Catholics are, have 
we any right to blame them for a scrupulousness 
which St. Paul would have respected ? Yet learned 
and pious as those excellent men undoubtedly are, 
may they not learn one farther lesson from him, and 
be contented to leave to their brethren that Christian 
liberty which he would not have abridged? It may 
admit a doubt, and a well-grounded one, whether 
that Apostle, with his eminently liberal and practical 
views, would ever have wished to revive in Eng- 
land, in the nineteenth century, the disciphne of the 
Churches of Syria or Greece in the fourth. Let us 
then rather hold out the hand of Christian affection 
to each other, and allow mutually, that " he that re- 
gardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he 

* Rom. xiv. 2-6. 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not 
regard it." 

Clement of Alexandria, whose writings form the 
groundwork of the following pages, is thought to 
have been born at Athens ; he was the son of Gen- 
tile parents, whose rank and fortune enabled them 
to afford him all the advantages of a liberal educa- 
tion ; his own diligence aided his parents' hberality, 
and young Clement made extraordinary proficiency 
in philosophy, that early philosophy of Greece which, 
as he himself afterwards observed, "was, like the 
Mosaic law, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ." 
Socrates and Plato brought him to the foot of the 
cross, and like the Roman centurion, his heart con- 
fessed at once the presence of the Deity in that suf- 
fering man. He became a Christian, and a zealous 
one ; brought the treasures of his mind to the aid of 
the Church, and was for many years a Catechist, 
that is, a person charged with the instruction of the 
heathen converts before baptism. He remained at 
Alexandria, and finally became a presbyter, but never 
was raised to the rank of a bishop. He died peace- 
ably about A. D. 212. His writings probably bear 
date about a. d. 180 to a. d. 202, at which latter 
period the persecution of the Emperor Severus drove 
him from the school at Alexandria to take shelter in 
a safe obscurity, till the storm was overblown. 



A few remarks will be needful to put the unlearn- 
ed reader in possession of some pecuHarities in the 
language, before he enters upon the following or any 
other translation from the Greek. Much of the New 
Testament will become the clearer in consequence. 
The word Aoyoj, which in the Gospel of St. John is 
translated Word, has in the original a much wider 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

signification; for though it occasionally has that 
sense, it much more generally signifies the reasoning 
faculty, or active power of the mind : from it is de- 
rived our word logic, and from Tioycxoj, logicos, ra- 
tiotial, we take our logical. A foolish man would be 
termed in Greek a^oyo?, i. e., without logos or under- 
standing. The word ?odyoj was so commonly used in 
the schools of philosophy at the time when the New 
Testament was written, that no one could have had 
a moment's difficulty as to its sense ; and accordingly 
we find several of the early Christian writers observ- 
ing that the Logos, i. e., the active rational power, 
must have been in God from all eternity, because 
God is essentially %oycxb?, i. e., rational ; and they 
accordingly give that title to every manifestation of 
God's will to his creatures, considering it in this case 
to be the ration-al power of God in visible action. 
Thus we find St. Paul speaking of the "Spiritual 
Rock," which followed the Israelites in their journey 
through the desert, " which rock was Christ."* And 
shortly after, "neither let us tempt Christ, as some 
of them also tempted, and were destroyed of ser- 
pents;" where the visible presence of God in the 
tabernacle is evidently termed Christ ; a word used 
by the Apostle as synonymous with Logos, because, 
though different in their original signification, the 
two names were apphed to the same Being. 

Christ, which is the English mode of writing the 
Greek ;tpt(5T'of, i. e., anointed, is the same in meaning 
as the Messiah of the Hebrew, and both are applied 
to Aaron and the priests who succeeded him, because 
they were consecrated by unction: thus we con- 
stantly find in the Mosaic law, "and the Messiah, 
the Priest, shall do thus :" — that is, the anointed or 

* 1 Cor. X. 4. 



13 INTRODUCTION. 

consecrated priest ; and hence the appropriateness of 
the allusions to the office of the high priest in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. Some allusions of this kind 
will also be found in Clement's writings. The dou- 
ble meaning of these titles gives rise perpetually to a 
play upon the words, which frequently cannot be 
rendered in a translation without a long periphrasis. 

Another term which is used largely by Clement, 
and also by St. Paul, is taken from the mysteries of 
the Greeks, where the neophyte went through vari- 
ous stages of initiation, till at last he was permitted 
to know the whole arcanum, and then he was called 
finished or perfect (ifs'ksLoi). The perfect Christian, 
then, in the acceptation of the early writers of the 
Church, does not mean a person who has never 
sinned, but one who, passing through the various 
stages.of Christian disciphne, had arrived at the com- 
plete knowledge of the spirit and meaning of his pro- 
fession: for it must be recollected, that they are 
speaking of persons who had been brought up in the 
errors of heathenism, and who, having wished to be 
instructed in the mysteries of Christ instead of those 
of Eleusis, went through the different grades, first, of 
repentance for past errors ; second, of belief or faith 
in the doctrines taught ; third and last, of complete 
knowledge ; and a Christian thus perfectly initiated 
Clement calls a Gnostic, from yj/wstj, gnosis, a perfect 
knowledge of a subject. The title of Gnostic had 
been adopted by some corrupters of the faith also, 
and Clement addresses himself to them, showing 
them wherein they were wrong; for, says he, "the 
true Christian Gnostic will be such a one as I sketch 
out;" and a more beautiful character can hardly be 
imagined than that of Clement's Gnostic, or perfect 
Christian. 

It will be evident from what has been said, that in 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

order to give a true notion of the writer's meaning to 
the mere Enghsh reader, a paraphrase rather than a 
translation of the extracts given must often be requi- 
site, and the compiler has, on many occasons, adopt- 
ed that method, with a due care, however, to add 
nothing to the meaning of the original. Extracts 
from other authors of about the same age have been 
given, when they were useful either to corroborate 
or to explain the meaning of Clement. In some 
cases, as in the chapter of the Psedagogus on the 
Christian use of food, some details have been entered 
into, which at first sight may appear irrelevant to the 
general purpose of this small work ; but there has 
been an object in their insertion: we are too apt to 
lose sight of the diversity of country and manners, in 
reading ancient writings, and thus make two mis- 
takes; the one by unconditionally accepting their 
precepts, the other by unconditionally rejecting them. 
The same process which has been recommended 
above, with regard to the Epistles of the Apostles, 
is more needful yet in reading the writings of their 
successors, and it is in order to set the reader down, 
as it were, in a very different state of society, that 
some of these fashions of the day have been pre- 
served in this selection from early Christian writers. 
It should be remembered by all who are desirous 
of understanding the writings of the fathers, or the 
state of the Church in their times, that, in the early 
ages, heathens were the stuff that Christians were 
made out of. Men and women too were, by their 
early habits, corrupted to a point which surpasses 
anything which, in modern times, the decent part 
of society can even guess at: the grossest obscenities 
were the common, pubhc, and every-day habits of 
life, and of rehgion too: and philosophers, in their 
schools, mooted the coarsest questions in the coarsest 
3 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

language without the slightest reserve. The Roman 
Emperors made a parade of every abomination that 
man could commit, without attempting the least con- 
cealment even from the people in general, excepting 
in the case of Tiberius : — eyes, ears, thoughts, were 
poisoned from morning till night by a tainted atmo- 
sphere. Amid this steam of putridity Christianity 
raised itself, pure, unspotted, holy, — wrapped, as it 
were, in the fragrance of heaven in the midst of the 
reeking corruption : it was around the cross only that 
a pure air could be breathed, and men fled to it as 
for life : — but they carried with them the recollection 
and the stains of their early habits : — what wonder 
then that even Christian doctors used language, and 
discussed questions which are now strange to our 
ears ? what wonder, if amid such scenes as were rife 
in the moving world, many should withdraw wholly 
from it, and find their happiness in the wilderness ? 
what wonder if the bishop Avho had a feeling of what 
Christian duty is, should seek to gain a power even 
over crowned heads, that would enable him to check 
such licentiousness ? When Ambrose closed the 
gates of the Cathedral of Milan against the Emperor 
Theodosius, then stained with the massacre at Thes- 
salonica, and compelled him to public penance and 
reparation, he showed what was the noble object 
which animated the heads of the Church at that 
time, in striving to exalt the spiritual over the tem- 
poral jurisdiction : the common sense of the people 
compared the bishop with the emperor, — the former 
not without faults, but infinitely superior in all that 
forms the true greatness of man, to the licentious 
tyrants who too often wore the purple ; and public 
opinion gave the supremacy to the bishop. A 
power which confessedly stands on this as its chief 
support, must have begun in good ; for nothing that 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

is in the first instance oppressive or wholly false can 
gain a majority of adherents, which a power founded 
on public opinion impHes ; but unfortunately the very 
nobleness and greatness of the end, blinded those 
who had it in view, so far, that they became unscru- 
pulous as to the means of attaining it ; and having 
once lost sight of the Christian command not to do 
evil that good may come, the very advancers of a 
noble object corrupted their own hearts, and vitiated 
their purpose by the ill means adopted : the step was 
easy from spiritual to political power, and an ambi- 
tious man who saw that his really devout predeces- 
sors had not scrupled to make use of fraud, to gain 
a farther hold on the minds of the people, easily per- 
suaded himself that his political ambition had really 
the glory of God in view, and used the same means 
for a worse pur-pose. Political power was gained 
partly by immoral means, partly by the lingering 
prestige of hohness which hung round the priestly 
vestment, compared with the vices and cruelties of 
the princes of a rude age : but political power placed 
the prince bishops on a level with temporal rulers, 
they adopted their manners and their vices, and 
once more public opinion stripped and threw down 
the idol, which but a few ages before it had so 
eagerly set up. 

Such is the view which an unprejudiced spectator 
probably would take of the rise of the spiritual power, 
which at last frightened its creators into pulling it 
down again; and it may be usefully applied to the 
present times. We should then view Romanism as 
an almost necessary phase of Christianity in a state 
of society now passed away, and remembering that 
since the Church, according to the promise of its 
founder, is to be coeval with the world, it must have 
within itself the power of accommodating itself to the 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

State and needs of every age; — -we shall endeavor to 
develop its power in the direction most appropriate 
to time and place, not by reviving the exact disci- 
pline of any bygone age, but by giving it the energy 
best suited to our own ; an energy of good and use- 
ful works rather than of ceremonial observance. It 
is better to remember Cyprian calling his flock to- 
gether to nurse the sick of the plague at Carthage, 
than to dwell on his high pretensions to episcopal 
power, though if in any they were ever justified, it 
was in such a man. When the Church makes such 
calls, men's hearts respond to it, if not their lips ; for 
though Cyprian died a martyr to his faith, his ho-^ 
nored obsequies met no interruption from the heathen 
governor, who knew how dear the Christian bishop 
was become, even to the population who had not 
received his creed, by his unhesitating and undis- 
tinguishing benevolence : — undistinguishing, I mean, 
as to what the religious profession of the object of it 
might be. Heathens had left their sick and dying 
relatives, — Christians had nursed them as a part of 
the great human brotherhood, — -and the tears of both 
parties flowed over his grave, who had given the 
impulse to this act of self-devotion. 

Let us view the first Christians then as they were ; 
as men of great minds, though influenced, as all men 
must be, by the circumstances of their times ; mixing 
almost superhuman virtues at one time, with human 
errors at another, and whilst contemplating those 
virtues with the admiration which all who love ex- 
cellence must feel, let us not suffer our admiration 
to bhnd us to their faults, nor forget that there is 
but One perfect Exemplar for every Christian to 
follow. 




AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 



C. 1. The writer opens his subject by reminding 
the Greeks of their traditions respecting the effects 
of the music and sacred h3'-mns of Amphion, Or- 
pheus, and others. Song, he observes, has been the 
vehicle of superstition too often, it is now time that 
other and better hymns should teach you other and 
better lessons. He thus continues : 

" The Lord has made man after his own likeness, 
that he might be a fair, self-breathing instrument of 
sweet music ; and He too the heavenly supra -mun- 
dane Logos, is a, holy and well-tuned organ, giving 
forth the whole harmony of God. What then does 
this organ, our Lord the Logos of God, intend to 
effect by his new song ? To open the eyes of the 
blind and the ears of the deaf, and to lead the erring 
and lame to the paths of righteousness: to show God 
to foolish men, to put an end to corruption, to van- 
quish death, and to turn disobedient sons towards 
their Father ; for this organ of God is a lover of man. 
The Lord pities, instructs, exhorts, admonishes, saves, 
guards, and finally announces to us an abundant re- 
ward for our proficiency in learning the lessons he 
teaches, even the kingdom of heaven ! He enjoys 
but one pleasure through us, and that is that we 
should be saved: for vice indeed feeds upon the 
corruption and destruction of man, but the Eternal 
Truth like a bee, drawing to himself all the sweet- 
ness of the flower without hurting it, rejoices only 
in our salvation. See then ! thou hast His promise ! 
thou hast His affection for thy race ! Participate in 



18 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

the proffered grace. And as for this my song of 
salvation, think it not altogether new, for before the 
morning star He was. 'In the beginning was the 
Logos, and the Logos was with God, and God was 
the Logos.' 

" But error seems ancient : the truth appears to 
be new : thus the fabulous goats teach the antiquity 
of the Phrygians ; or the poets feign the Arcadians 
to have existed before the moon ; or the Egyptians 
imagine their land to have first produced both gods 
and men ; but none of these claim to have existed 
before the world. But long before the world we^ 
existed in the will and intention of God ; for we are 
the rational creation of God'st rational will, and 
through him we became the most ancient ; for the 
Logos, i. e., reason, was in the beginning ; and as 
the Logos was before all things, so he was and is the 
divine origin of all: but now that he first takes the 
name which of old belonged to the sacrificing priest,^ 
namely, that of Christ, I call the song a new one. 

"The divine Logos, the Christ, was the cause of 
our being, and of our well-being also : for he was in 
God:§ and now this Logos himself appears to men, 

* i. e., the Christians, who then appeared as a new sect. 

■j" tS ©sS Aoya k "KoyiKa, ir'kaiTfA.a.Ta hf^sii. 

X The sacrificing priests, under the Mosaic dispensation, were 
termed the Messiah or anointed. This word is translated in 
Greek by XPTo? !• e., Christ. 

§ "For God was before all things alone — being both world 
and place and everything to himself. Alone, because there is 
nothing exterior to Him, and yet not indeed alone, because he 
had in himself his reason : for God is rational, and reason was 
first in Him, and thus all things are from Him, and this reason 
is his sensation. The Greeks term it Xoyoi;, which we translate 
Word, and thus our people, for brevity's sake, say, ' In the 
beginning the Word was with God,' though it would be more 
proper to say, reason, since God was not speaking from the 
beginning, although rational ; and this he was, even before the 



AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 19 

the only being- that ever partook of both natures, as 
well that of God as of man, to be the cause of all 
good to us. From him we learn to live virtuously; 
by him we are conducted towards eternal life, as 
says the divine apostle of the Lord, 'the love of God 
the Saviour was manifested to all men, instructing 
us, in order that we, having abjured all impiety and 
worldly desires, might hve soberly, and justly, and 
piously in this world, expecting, in blessed hope, the 
manifestation of the glory of our great God and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

" This then is the new song : namely the appear- 
ance of the Logos, existing in the beginning, and 
before the beginning, now shining forth in us. The 
pre-existing Saviour has now but a short time since, 
appeared to us: He has appeared who exists ever 
in the Ever-existing: in order that the Logos, — i. e., 
reason or wisdom, — by whom all things were cre- 
ated,* who was with God, might become a teacher to 

beginning; for the very word spoken, consisting of reason, 
shows the prior existence of this latter Con- 
sidering, therefore, and disposing by his reason. He effected his 
will by his word. Which thou rnayst easily understand by what 
passes in thyself . . . when thou conferrest silently with 
thine own reason," — Tertull. adv. Praxeam, c. 5. 

* " God through his reason or word {Xoyoi;) and wisdom (iro'^icig) 
made all things." — Theoph. ad Autolycwa, lib. i. 

'' It is not allowable to thinli otherwise therefore of the Spirit 
and the power (to TrnufAa. kaI tw ^vvafxiv) which is in God (Trapa 
tS ©sy) than that it is the Logos, which also is the firstborn of 
God, as Moses the prophet has shown. This came upon the 
Virgin and overshadowed her," &c. — Justin Mart., ^p. ii. 

" Possessing the Spirit which is Jesus Christ." — Ignat. ad 
Magnesias Ep., § 5. 

Nothing is more remarkable in the early Christian writers 
than the care with which they guard against any separation of 
the Deity in the mind ; probably the Anan notion which made 
the Logos a separate being was already beginning to creep in. 
But as in the above passage Justin asserts the complete oneness 
of the Deity as manifested in Christ, so he asserts also the com- 



30 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

US. The Logos who gave life in the beginning as 
Creator, now appears as a teacher, in order that he 
may afterwards, a« God, give us hfe eternal. Nor 
did he now first take pity on our errors, but long ago, 
in the beginning of time : and now, when we were 
perishing, he appears and saves. For the evil and 
creeping animal, tempting and bewitching, enslaves 
and tortures men even to this time, as the barbarians 
are s&id to do their captives, binding the dead to the 
living till both putrefy together. For this evil one, 
like a tyrant, ties such as he is able to make his own, 
to stones, and wood, and all sorts of idols, with the 
miserable bond of superstition; and, it may be said, 
buries the living with those who are already decayed : 
thus, — for the tempter is but one, — he dragged Eve 
of old,* and now other men, to death. Our Helper 
and Saviour, the Lord too, is One ; awaiting, from 
the first, the time prophetically announced ; but now 
visibly caUing us to salvation. Let us then, accord- 
ing to the apostolic precept, fly ' the ruler of the 
power of the air, of the spirit now energetic in the 
sons of disobedience,' and escape to the Saviour and 
Lord, who now and ever exhorts to salvation, as he 
did of old in Egypt and the desert, through the bush 
and the cloud. And now by the voice of Moses the 
deeply learned, and Isaiah the lover of truth, and all 
the chorus of prophets, by a more rational teaching, 
he turns all who have ears towards that Logos which 
is the Divine Wisdom ; sometimes he blames, some- 



plete humanity of Jesus, within a few pages, in the same treat- 
ise. "Jesus, called the Son of God," says he, " although he 
was a man according to the common acceptation of the term, 
was worthy of being called the Son of God, on account of the 
wisdom that was in him, for even your poets always call the 
Deity the father of gods and men." — Justin Mart., Ap. ii., p. 67. 
* The tempter, according to Clement's opinioiij is the earthly 
or sensual nature. — See Protrep., c. 11. 



AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 21 

times he threatens ; to some he speaks in elegies, to 
some in lyric songs ; like a good physician using 
various remedies for the sick. For the Saviour is 
many voiced, and in many ways strives to effect the 
salvation of man. 

"But thou, O Greek! if thou behevest not the 
prophets, if to thee both the men and the fire are but 
a mythological fable, to thee the Lord himself speaks, 
' who being in the form of God, thought it no robbery 
to be equal with God;' for the compassionate Deity 
abased himself in his eagerness to save man; and 
the Logos himself now addresses thee openly, sham- 
ing thy want of belief. I say then, that the Logos 
of God is made man, in order that thou mightest 
learn from a man, how man might become a god. 
Is it not then absurd, my friends, when God is always 
exhorting to virtue, to reject his help, and throw away 
salvation ?" 

Clement then goes on to notice the preaching of 
John, and his exhortations to repentance ; and then 
adds, "Do thou then, if thou wouldst see God truly, 
participate in such a purification as shall be worthy 
of Him; not with leaves of laurel, and fillets varied 
with wool and purple, but clothing thyself with 
righteousness, and wearing the leaves of temperance 
for a garland, seek diligently till thou findest Christ. 
' I anri the door,' says he, and that door must be sought 
by those who would know God: that once attained, 
the gates of heaven are open to us : for the doors of 
the Divine Reason* are rational,! opening with the 
key of faith : no one knows God but the Son, and he 
to whom the Son makes him known ; but I am well 
assured that he who has opened the door hitherto 

* i. e. The Logos. 

j" 'koyuai yao ai to Aoya TTvXai. 



22 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

shut, will henceforward reveal what is within ; and 
will show those things which no one was able to 
know before, unless he entered by Christ, through 
whom alone God is perceived." 

C. 2. "No longer then seek so curiously to ex- 
plore the impious adyta of your temples, nor the 
mouths of deep caves full of wonders, the Thespro- 
tean pot, or the Cirrhean tripod, or the brazen caul- 
dron of Dodona, or the knotted tree among the sands 
of the desert, held in so much honor, or the oracle 
there given. With the decaying tree leave also 
these worn out fables : the Castalian fountain has 
been silenced, so has that of Colophon, and the other 
oracular streams have died away in like manner." 

After a further triumphant notice of the now silent 
oracles, the writer launches into a comparison of the 
abominations of heathen mythology, and its gross and 
sensual rites, with the purity and subhme doctrines 
of Christianity: notices with praise the pure lives of 
the philosophers, who by their cotemporaries were 
termed atheists,* and insists, that so far from this 
charge being true, they were so stigmatized merely 
because they pointed out and despised the falsehood 
of the reigning superstition; "if they did not actually 
arrive at the truth," he adds, "at least they saw the 
error, and kept a living ember among the ashes, to 
be kindled hereafter to a brighter light." He then, 
with a fresh burst of indignant reproof, holds up to 
contempt the so called gods of the Greeks, and con- 

* " Christ is the firstborn of God, as we have already shown, 
being the Logos (reason and speech) of which all the human 
race are participant, and they who live according to reason are 
Christians, though they may have been called atheists, such as 
Socrates and Heracleitus and the like, among the Greeks, and 
among the barbarians Abraham and Ananias, and Azarias, and 
Misael, and Elias, and many more which for brevity's sake I 
omit." — Justin Mart. Ap. ii. 



AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 23 

tinues this strain through several chapters : after this 
he reviews the opinions of the philosophers; con- 
demns their occasionally obscure, and occasionally- 
timid expressions respecting the momentous truths 
which he is calling the attention of his readers to, 
and contrasts them with the bold, clear lanofua2:e of 
Christianity. From the philosophers he turns to the 
poets; and having pointed out many of their mean 
and unworthy representations of their mythological 
deities, he brings forward the Flebrew prophets to 
show the difference in sublimity between falsehood 
and truth, and calls on those who have been hitherto 
blinded by superstition, to listen to the true descrip- 
tion of the Maker of all things. 

C. 8. "The wise prophet Jeremiah, or rather the 
Holy Spirit speaking in him, thus describes God, 'I 
am a God at hand,' saith he, ' not a God afar off: what 
can man do in secret that I see not ? Do not I fill 
heaven and earth? saith the Lord.' And again in 
Isaiah, 'Who shall measure the heavens with his 
span, and take the earth in his hand?' See now the 
immensity of God, and bow in awe before him. Him 
we worship of whom the prophet has said, 'before 
His face the mountains melt away, like wax before 
the fire' — that God whose throne is the heavens, and 
his footstool the earth." After some more quota- 
tions of this kind he thus proceeds. 

" What then is the mystery of wisdom which I 
announce to you? We who have bowed ourselves 
before idols, are by that wisdom which is his Logos, 
raised to the truth ; and this is the first resurrection 
from the fall." 

C. 9. "The mouth of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, 
has said, 'Neglect not, my son, the instruction of the 

* Protrcpt., c, 8. 



24 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

Lord, neither shrink from his reproof.' — O exceed- 
ing philanthropy ! God speaks to man, not as a 
schoolmaster to his scholars, not as a lord to his 
slaves, but as a father gently admonishing his chil- 
dren. Moses confesses that he feared and trembled 
when he heard the Logos, and thou hearing that 
divine Logos, dost thou not fear? Art thou not 
moved? Wilt thou not hasten to learn, that is, 
hasten to thy salvation, fearing his wrath, loving his 
kindness, eager for the hope he affords thee, that 
thou mayest escape judgment?" 

C. 10. With an earnestness proportioned to the 
importance of the subject, the writer points out again 
and again the parental tenderness w^ith which God 
calls his erring children back to himself: he entreats 
his readers no longer to hesitate, but to turn to the 
proffered embraces of their affectionate parent ; and 
meets the anticipated objection that such a step 
would be an abandonment of the faith of their fathers, 
by a fresh demonstration of the vanity of that faith. 
" Call hither," he says, " your Pheidias and your 
Polycleitus, Praxiteles, and Apelles too, and all your 
excellent artists; — not one of them can make a 
breathing image ; not one can mould his clay into 
flesh. Who softened the marrow ? who hardened 
the bones? who swelled the veins, and poured the 
blood into them ? who spread the skin over all ? who 
of you all is able to construct an eye that shall see? 
who can breathe a soul into his work? who will be- 
stow righteousness? who will promise immortality? 
He alone, who is the Creator of the universe, the 
Great Artist and Father who formed man to be his 
Hving image. Your Olympian Jupiter, the image of 
an image, is the vain work of Attic hands : but the 
true image of God is his Logos, the genuine Son of 
the Eternal Mind, the Divine Reason, the Light 



^^ 



AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 25 

given forth by the Primal Light of ail things: — and 
man is the image of the Logos, for there is in him a 
mind, which we are told was made in the image of 
God, and after his hkeness; namely, a rational intel- 
lect, and feelings resembhng the Divine. 

"He who has never heard of the Logos receives 
pardon of his sins on account of his ignorance ; but 
he who has received the knowledge, but yet turns 
away his soul from it through wilful increduhty, by 
how much the more prudent he may appear, by so 
much he does injury to his own intellect, for man 
was made to be familiar with God. We do not set 
the horse to plough, nor the bull to hunt, but occupy 
each of those beasts in what they were born for. 
And man, who is made to gaze on the skies, is evi- 
dently a heavenly plant : we call you then to the 
knowledge of God, to intimacy with him ; and coun- 
sel you to get ready a due provision for eternity, even 
a pious life. Till the earth, we say, if thou be an 
husbandman; but still amid thy labors, learn to 
know God ; if thou be devoted to a sea life, follow 
thy profession, but call upon the Heavenly Steers- 
man. Art thou a soldier? listen to the righteous 
orders of thy Commander. Awaken then as a man 
does from drunken sleep, open your eyes gradually, 
and look at the miserable stones that you have wor- 
shiped." After a page or two of the same kind of 
exhortation, he continues thus : — 

C. 11. "And now, if you be willing, let us take 
a brief view of the Divine benevolence towards us. 
The first man formerly sported free in Paradise, for 
he was the child of God ; but when he resigned 
himself to sensual pleasure, (for the serpent crawl- 
ing on his belly is an allegorical expression for 
sensuality and earthly vice feeding on rubbish,) the 
youth was perverted with unruly desires, grew a 



26 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

man in disobedience, and not choosing to listen to 
his Father, dishonored God. How great is the 
power of sensuahty ! the man who in his simplicity 
was free, is found bound by his sins. The Lord 
determined to loosen him again from his bonds, and 
for this purpose clothed himself in flesh ; O divine 
mystery ! B}^ this he subdued the serpent, and en- 
slaved the tyrant death ; and what is most beyond 
belief, that very man who was wandering in the 
ways of sensuality, chained to corruption, is now 
seen with his hands unbound, and at liberty. The 
Lord was abased, but man arose, and he who had 
fallen from Paradise, received Heaven as the reward 
of a greater obedience. Why then should we any 
longer frequent the schools of Athens or of Ionia ? For 
we have a Master who fills all things with his holy, 
creating, saving, beneficent power; and who guides 
us by precept, by prophecy, by instruction,' — for he 
is able to teach us all things." 

" He who obeys him" — i. e. Christ — " exults in 
everything ; follows God ; obeys his Heavenly Fa- 
ther, acknowledging his former errors ; loves God ; 
loves his neighbor; fulfils the commandments ; strives 
after the prize of a successful combatant ; claims the 
promise. For it was always God's intention* to 
save the human flock, and therefore the good God 
sent the good Shepherd : the Divine Logos, explain- 
ing the truth, showed men the height of salvation, 
and how the repentant would be saved, but the dis- 
obedient judged What then do I exhort thee 

to do ? I urge thee to save thyself — this is Christ's 
will : in one word, he presents thee with life. And 
who is this Christ ? I will tell you in a few words. 
He is the Logos or Word of truth — of incorruption : 

* TrpoKsirai Je uti r£ 0e« — i. e. It always lay before God. 



AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 27 

who regenerates man, leading him to truth ; the 
spur to salvation, who puts away mortality, who ex- 
pels death, who builds a temple in men, in order 
that God may dwell in them. Purify this temple, 
and throw sensuality and indolence, like an ephe- 
meral flower, to the wind and the fire. Cultivate 
prudently the fruits of temperance, and consecrate 
thyself to God as a first-fruit of thy labor, and not of 
that only, but of the grace of God towards thee. 

C. 12. " Let us fly then from old habits, let us fly 
them as we would a dangerous promontory, or the 
threatening of Charybdis, or the fabulous Sirens. 
An ill habit strangles the man : it turns him away 
from the truth, it is a snare, it is an abyss, it is a 
ditch to bury him in, an evil fan to blow away the 
good grain from his heart. But do thou 

' Drive the good ship through yonder froth and foam.'* 

Sail past, unheeding the song : its tones are death. 
If thou wilt, thou canst vanquish the danger, and 
bound to the mast,t thou wilt be free from all cor- 
ruption : thy steersman will be the Logos of God, 
and the Holy Spirit is the favorable wind that calls 
thee to the port of heaven. There wilt thou see 
God, and take the last step in thy initiation in those 
holy mysteries." The writer then traces a parallel 
between the mysteries of Christ, and those of Bac- 
chus, and thus proceeds :— - 

" These are my bacchanian mysteries : be ini- 
tiated, and thou wilt join the chorus of angels around 
the self-existent, and undying, and only existing 

* Part of the speech of Ulysses to his steersman. Odys. fx,. 
V. 226. 

f T« |uXw, to the wood ; the phrase is applicable also to the 
cross. ' 



28 AN EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS. 

Deity, hymning with us the Logos of God. He is 
immortal, this Jesus— the one great high-priest of 
the one God his father, he prays for men, and thus 
calls them. — Listen to me, ye myriads of tribes, or 
rather as many of you as are rational, (jioyixol,) as 
well barbarians as Greeks. I call the whole race of 
man, of whom I am the maker, by the will of the 
Father. Come to me, to be ranged under the one 
God, and under the one Logos of God, and not only 
shall you surpass irrational creatures by your rea- 
son, but I bestow on you alone, of all mortals, the 
gift of immortahty. For if indeed all things are 
common between friends, and man is the friend of 
God, (for he is become so by the intervention of the 
Logos,) then man has a share in all that belongs to 
God ; and all things are in common between the 
two friends, God and man. The pious Christian 
therefore can alone be called rich, and well-con- 
ducted, and well-born, for he is the image of God, 
made just, and holy, and prudent, by Christ Jesus, 

and by him rendered like to God Thus stand 

things then with us, the companions of Christ : as 
are our opinions, such are our words; and such as 
our words are, such are our actions ; and such as 
our actions singly, will be our life generally : for the 
life of men who know Christ must be excellent in all 
points." 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 

C. 1. Three things are chiefly to be noticed in 
man ; i. e. his general disposition, or morals, — his 
actions, or what he does actively ; — his emotions, or 
what he feels involuntarily and passively. Of these 
three, the hortatory word takes the especial charge 
of the general disposition, and whilst guiding men to 
piety, becomes a foundation for the building up of the 
faith. And in this teaching we rejoice greatly, and 
casting off our old opinions, we become young again, 
in order to our salvation, exclaiming with the prophet, 
" Oh how good is God to Israel, and to those whose ^ 
hearts are set aright." The siig^^stfng'''w7yrd re- 
gulates our actions ; the emotions are guided and 
stilled by the persuasive and consolatory word^^ but 
this word is altogether one, and being one, snatches 
man from the multiformity of worldly habits, and 
leads him in one wa}'- to salvation, even faith in God. 
Therefore whilst our heavenly Leader, the Logos, 
is calling us to salvation, we call him the hortatory 
word... when he is at once suggestive and remedial, 
we call him in one appropriate word, the Paedagogue 
or Tutor. But this Tutor does not teach the methods 
of the schools, but is strictly practical ; for his object 

* In this passage the writer appears to have availed himself 
of the many senses of 'Koyo;, to make it signify many things at 
once; and thus, while alluding to his ow^n Exhortation, which 
might justly be called a hortatory argument, or word {Xoyog 
Tr^oTgSHTtHoj), he, at the same time, expresses the offices assumed 
by the Divine Aiyoq, and the uses to be made of the sacred 
writings. 

3 



30 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 

is rather to better the soul, than to imbue it with 
learning, and to make men wise and good, rather 
than scientific. The Logos is able to teach know- 
ledge also, but not yet : — for the teacher of science 
occupies himself in unfolding abstruse doctrines ; 
but this Tutor, being practical, attends first to the 
regulation of the disposition and morals ; incites us 
to set ourselves manfully to the performance of our 
duties ; directs us by the purest of precepts ; holds 
up the example of preceding errors, as a warning to 
those who come after. . . The cure of the interior sick- 
ness of our passions follows, the Tutor strengthening 
the soul by persuasive examples, like gentle medi- 
cines : by his benevolent admonitions dieting the 
sick to a perfect knowledge of the truth : for in our 
phraseology, health differs from knowledge ; the one 
being gained from medicine, the other from school 
discipline. Now we never attempt to teach the sick 
man till he is quite recovered ; nor are the precepts 
enforced on the sick man and the scholar of the same 
kind : for in the one case they will relate to the cure, in 
the other to progress in learning. As then those who 
are sick in body need a physician, so do those whose 
souls are weak and ailing, need the superintendence 
of a tutor and guardian, who shall take care that they 
are cured of the sickness of the passions first ; and 
then afterwards comes the teacher who leads them, 
thus cured and purified, into an aptitude for perfect 
knowledge, so that they may be able to comprehend 
the unfolding of the whole course of instruction. — 
And thus the philanthropic Logos, eagerly diligent 
in carrying us on to perfection through the different 
stages of a salutary discipline, uses this wise ar- 
rangement ; and first exhorts, then guides, and finally 
instructs in all knowledge, 
C. 2. Our Tutor, O ye children ! resembles his 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 31 

Father, God ; whose unsinning, irreproachable son 
he is ; his soul being free from all earthly perturba- 
tions. He is pure God in the character of a man, — 
the minister of the paternal will, — the Logos-God, 
who is in the Father, who is from among the integral 
powers-^ of God, — God, with the very characteristics 
of God. He is to us an image without spot, which 
we must endeavor with all our strength to assimilate 
our souls to. But he indeed is free from the per- 
turbation of human passions, and being alone with- 
out sin, is alone fit to be our judge ; — ^^we neverthe- 
less have so much power that we can endeavor to sin 
as httle as possible, and there is nothing more urgent 
upon us than that we should, in the first place, free 
ourselves from the passions and sicknesses of our 
souls, and in the next, obtain power to prevent the 
too ready falling again into the habit of sinning. — 
Best of all it is not to sin at all — but this belongs to 
God ; the second grade is, not so much as to touch 
any unrighteousness intentionally, and this is the 
conduct of a sage: the third is not to fall into very 
many involuntary wrong doings, and this is the case 
with those who have been well educated; the last 
and lowest is that of persons who do not remain long 
in their sins. . . . Involuntary wrong doings are those 
which are the result of a sudden emotion. To sin 
is to act on an irrational principle, and hence the 
Divine Reason (Aoyoj) our Tutor, has taken us under 
his superintendence for the prevention of such folly. 
"Medicine," says Democritus, " cures the dis- 
eases of the body, but wisdom removes those of the 

* BH. h^iobv, the word here used in the plural, is in many pas- 
sages of the New Testament used in the singular, and has there 
been translated on the right hand: its plural use here would 
seem to prove that it everywhere means the power that is in 
God to afford help. 



32 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 

soul." The good Tutor who is the wisdom (cfo^t'a) 
and the reason {-koyos) of the Father, and the Maker 
of man, cares for the whole of his creation, and heing 
the complete physician of human nature, cures at 
once both soul and body : he says to the sick of the 
palsy, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine 
house" — to the dead he cries, " Lazarus ! come forth!" 

and the body arises from its tomb the soul he 

cures with precepts and gifts We, therefore, 

according to his intention, having become children, 
are disciplined under his excellent arrangement ; 
which, embracing first the order of the heavens, next 
takes the direction of man himself, and considering 
him his greatest work, having already tempered his 
body in beauty and just proportion, guides his soul 
to wisdom and moderation, finally regulating his 
human actions, and inspiring his own goodly order 
into the whole. 

C. 3. The Lord is helpful to us in all ways, both 
as man and as God ; for as God he takes away our 
sins, but as man he teaches us how to avoid sin. 
Well indeed may man be dear to God, since he is 
his own work: other things he called into existence 
by his fiat merely; but he made man as it w,ere with 
his own hands, and breathed into him somewhat of 
his own nature ...... Man, then, is loved by God ; 

and how, indeed, should he not be loved on whose 
account the only born* was sent from the bosom of 

* (Uovoj/sv^?. This word is usually translated only begotten : 
but as the early Christian writers so scrupulously disclaim any 
such relation between the eternal Father and Son as this phrase 
implies, it has been thought better to change it for another, 
though not, perhaps, less exceptionable phrase. No English 
word probably gives the meaning of the original. Let Athena- 
goras explain what was the notion attached to their expressions 
by the early Christians. The following extract is taken from his 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 33 

the Father;— he, who is the rational foundation 
(a,dyof) of the faith ... It becomes us, therefore, to 
love him who so lovingly guides us towards a worthy 
life ; and, conducting ourselves according to the rules 
of his discipline, not only to fulfil what is command- 
ed, and abstain from what is prohibited, but to profit 
by the examples held up to us, so that by avoiding 
the faults we see, on the one hand, and imitating to 
the utmost of our power the excellence which we 
perceive, on the other, we may assimilate our actions 
to the likeness of our Divine Tutor ; so that that part 
of us which is made in his image and similitude, 
may arrive at perfection. For wandering as we are 
in the deep obscurity of life, we need a sinless and 
discerning guide Let us then fulfil the com- 
mandments, according to the practice of the Lord : 
for the Divine Logos himself, being openly made 
flesh, exhibited both practical and theoretical virtue 



Apology, which was written a little before the works of Clement 
of Alexandria: — 

" It appears to me that I have sufficiently demonstrated that 
U'e cannot be Atheists, who preach one self-existent, eternal, 
invisible, impassible God, who can neither be included nor 
bounded, and who can be apprehended by the mind and reason 
alone ; containing in himself ineffable light, and beauty, and 
spirit and power : by whom the universe was made, arranged 
and governed, through his Reason, or Word (Aoyo;,) for we 
consider also that there is a Son of God. But let no one think 
it ridiculous that God should have a son, for we do not imagine 
anything respecting God the Father or the Son such as the poets' 
fable, who make their gods no better than men. The Son of 
God is the rational power (\6yoi;) of the Father in manifesta- 
tion (jjgtt) and efficacy {evspyna) by him, and through him, all 
things were made, the Father and the Son being one. For the 
Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father in the unity and 
power of the Spirit : the mind (voD?) and reason (Xoyoi) of the 
Father is the Son of God. — God being from all eternity Mind 
only, has necessarily the rational power (tov Xoycv) within him- 
self; for he is eternally rational." — Athenag. ApoL pro. Christ., 
p. 10. 



34 THE P.EDAGOGUE, BOOK I. 

at once. Taking, therefore, the Logos as our law, 
we acknowledge his precepts and admonitions to be 
the shortest and best road towards eternity : for his 
institutions are full of persuasions, not of fear. 

C. 4, " Delighting, therefore, now more and more 
in our wise obedience, we give ourselves up to the 
Lord, whether we be men or women, for there is but 
one rule for both. Both acknowledge one God, one 
Tutor, one Church : both are bound to the same tem- 
perance and moderation, to the same modesty : — food, 
• — the union in marriage, — breath, — sight, — hearing, 
— hope,— obedience,— love, — are common to both, and 
for those who have thus all things in common, grace 
and salvation are also in common: the love and the 
training are alike for both. ' In this world, says he, 
(the Saviour,) there is marrying and giving in mar- 
riage,' in which alone the difference between male 
and female is to be discerned, "but in that which is 
to come, it is not so." There the enjoyments of that 
friendly and holy life which arises out of marriage, 
will not be confined to male and female ; but will 
belong to man generally as a species, when earthly 
desires and he have parted company; for man is the 
general name common to both sexes. 

C. 5 " To us Isaac was a type of the Lord : 

he was a youth, that is a son ; for he was the son of 
Abraham as Christ is of God ; a sacrifice like the 
Lord, but not hke the Lord offered ; for Isaac merely 
carried the wood for the sacrifice, as Christ carried 
the cross. Only it was right that Isaac should not 
suffer, but leave the first fruits of that endurance to 
the Lord : yet his not being put to death also typified 
the divinity of the Lord : for Jesus rose after his 
funeral, not having suffered (in his Divine part), as 
Isaac was dismissed from the altar," 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 35 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

C. 1. "Having now shown what the general 
tendency of our disciphne is, it shall be ray next task 
to show what ought to be the life of one who is called 
a Christian, and how his conduct will be regulated 
by our principles under all circumst%nces. For 
where any one has turned away from exterior things, 
and has been led by the Logos to the culture of the 
mind rather than that of the body, he must learn to 
look closely into all that occurs in man, and he will 
be aware that what is external concerns him but little. 
It is the eye of the soul, man's distinguishing pe- 
cuharity, which must be cleansed ; while the flesh 
in Hke manner must be kept in chastity and hohness. 
What, indeed, is more desirable than that being 
loosened from those things in regard to which we 
may still consider ourselves as dust, we should press 
forward towards the thorough apprehension of the 
Deity. Other men, like the unreasoning animals, 
may live io eat ; .... we have been taught by our 
Tutor to eat that we may live. For the nourishment 
of the body is not the work we have to do, — nor is 
sensual pleasure the object of our pursuit, but rather 
the entrance into those mansions of incorruption 
whither the Divine Wisdom (o A6yo$) is guiding us. 
We shall, therefore, eat simple food as becomes chil- 
dren, and merely study to preserve life, not to obtain 
luxury. The best nourishment is that which is con- 
sistent with an easy digestion, so that the body may 
be light and fit for service ; and thus growth, and 
health, and useful strength are promoted : for I am 
not speaking of the pampered state of the Athletse, 
who from the immense eating necessary to their oc- 



36 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

cupation, injure, rather than benefit their habit of 
body. Great varieties of cookery, too, are to be 
avoided; for these engender abundant evils, disor- 
dering the stomach, and depraving the taste, and in- 
juring the constitution. Yet we shall find persons 
daring to call this study of luxury, seeking nourish- 
ment merely ; when, in fact, they are falling into 
sensuahty. Antiphanes, the Dehan physician, con- 
siders this variety and research in cookery to be one 
of the causes of disease ; but still they who have no 
taste for simplicity, abandon a proper moderation in 
diet for the vain glory of a fine table, and their whole 
anxiety is for choice dishes, from beyond sea. To 
methej appear pitiable, as laboring under a disease; 
but they are not ashamed to employ themselves in 
celebrating their gluttonous enjoyments : their much 
sought mur^na from the Sicihan straits, their Meean- 
drian eels, their kids from Melos, their mullets from 
Sciathos, their Pelorian scallops, their oysters from 
Abydena ; not forgetting the anchovies from Lipara, 
or the Mantinsean turnips, or the beet grown by the 
Ascrseans : they seek out the shell-fish of the Me- 
thymnseans, and the Athenian soles, and the Daph- 
nian flounders, and the dry figs that the unhappy 
Persian monarch with his five hundred thousand 
men came to seek in Greece : * they buy birds from 
Phasis, and Egyptian snipes, and Median peacocks. 
All these, after undergoing a thousand changes in 
the cook's hands, are swallowed down by the glut- 
ton, who ransacks 

The earth, the sea, and the wide-spreading air, 

to satisfy his throat. These insatiable people seem, 
as it Avere, to include the whole world in a drag-net 

* See Athenseus, lib. xiv. c. 18. 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 37 

for their table : and thus they go about gabbling to no 
purpose, till they have rubbed away their own lives 
in the cook's mortar. It appears to me that such a 
man is nothing but one great pouch.' — ' Seek not,' 
says the Scripture, ' the dainties of the rich, for they 
are deceitful meat ;' and we who seek for heavenly 
food, must command the stomach, and all that per- 
tains to it. ' Meats for the belly,' says the Apostle, 
for it is by these that our fleshly and mortal life here 
is preserved ; but some are bold enough to call these 
feasts, redolent of sauces and cookery, by the holy 
name of Agape.* 'Call your feasts by their proper 



* It was customary in the early church for the communicants 
to bring the bread and wine used in the Eucharist as an oblation 
on their part : a sufficiency was consecrated by the officiating 
minister, and if any was left after the ceremony, it was generally 
consumed on the spot by the communicants. The rest of the 
oblations were devoted to a meal eaten in the same place, 
" which," observes Bingham, in his Antiquities of the Christian 
Church, book xv. c, 7, " from the nature and circumstances of 
it was usually called Agape, or feast of charity, t because it was 
a liberal contribution of the rich to feed the poor. St. Chry- 
sostom gives this account of it, deriving it from Apostolical 
practice. He sayst the first Christians had all things in com- 
mon, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles ; and when that 
ceased, as it did in the Apostles' time, this came in its room, as 
an efflux or imitation of it. For though the rich did not make 
all their substance common, yet upon certain days appointed, 
they made a common table; and when the service was ended, 
and they had communicated in the Holy Mysteries, they all met 
at a common feast; the rich bringing provisions ; and the poor, 
and those who had nothing, being invited, they all feasted 
together." — "When the Christians in time of persecution, were 
obliged to meet early in the morning, before day, to celebrate 

the Eucharist we find the feast postponed . . . and Ter- 

tuUian, who gives the most particular account of it, speaks of it 
as a supper a little before night. " Our supper," he says, 
" which you accuse of luxury, shows its nature in its name ; for 



t Ignat. Ep. ad Smyrn. ayaTrriv Trofiiv. 
X Chrys. Horn. 27. 

4 



38 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

names ; term them dinner or supper parties, given 
for the sake of good fellowship and social intercourse : 
so the- Lord himself called them : but do not confound 
things ; for the Apostle tells us, If I give avi^ay my 
whole substance, and have not charity [aydTtvi), I am 
nothing. The law and the word depend on this uni- 
versal benevolence (dyccTtiy), and he who loves God 
and loves his neighbor also, will have a place at the 
table in heaven.* 

" ' The kingdom is not meat and drink,' says the 
Apostle, to show that it was of no earthly feast that 
he spoke ; ' but it is righteousness, and peace, and 
joy in the Holy Spirit,' and he who eats such food 
is possessed of that kingdom. Agape, then, is a 
pure thing, and worthy of God ; but one of its works 
is the communication of the goods of hfe to others: 
it is not a supper; but the affording food to those 
that want it depends on agape (charity). Let our 
suppers, then, be simple and speedy, such as shall 
leave us fit for our work, not a medley of choice 
dishes artfully prepared, for this last is unworthy of 



it is called ayaw*}, which among the Greeks signifies love. What- 
ever charge we are at, it is again to be at an expense upon the 
account of piety : for we therewith relieve and refresh the poor. 
There is nothing vile or immodest committed in it, for we do not 
sit down till we have first offered up prayer to God ; we eat only 
to satisfy hunger ; and drink only so much as becomes modest 
persons. We fill ourselves in such a manner as that we re- 
member we are to worship God by night." — Abuses afterwards 
crept in, and the practice was abandoned. It is of this kind of 
feast that St. Paul speaks, 1 Cor. xi. 20, where he reproves the 
people for their greediness, each considering his own supper 
only, till the whole became an indecorous display of selfish glut- 
tony. " One goes hungry," he says, " and another is drunken," 
or filled. 

* h Irrovphioq zhooy^io.. Among the Greeks a table was spread 
for the public on certain festival days, and this was called 



THE PtEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 39 

persons under the discipline of our Tutor; since the 
excess beyond a sufficient nourishment, deteriorates 
the man both in soul and body. How foolish and 
unreasonable it is in those who are present at din- 
ners of the people, to wonder and admire, after having 
known the luxuries of the Logos, . . . how useless it 
is to rise from the couches, to peep into the dishes, 
looking out like young birds from the nest; . . . how 
idiotic to thrust the hands into the sweet sauces, or 
continually to be stretching them out to clutch at the 
viands, not to taste, but as it were to devour without 
measure or manners ! By their voracity we might 
suppose such persons hogs or dogs rather than men : 
in their eagerness fiUing both cheeks, and swelhng 
the veins in their faces, till the perspiration flows 
down, and they are breathless, and oppressed with / j 

excess. ... It is against these persons, who show ^ 

such an unseemly eagerness in their meals, that the 
Apostle directs his reproof, saying, 'Everyone is pre- 
occupied with his own dinner whilst he is eating, and 
one goes without, and another is full. Have ye not 
houses to eat and drink in ? or do you despise the 
church of God, and cast contempt on those who are 
poor V For these inordinate eaters at the table of 
the rich cast contempt on themselves. Both do evil: 
on the one hand, they who tempt their poorer brethren 
to excess ; on the other hand, they who lay open their 
own intemperance in the sight of their entertainer. 
It was needful, then, to reprove these unblushing 
persons, who enjoyed these dinnets with so little dis- 
cretion and modesty; and the Apostle adds, in much 
displeasure, ' Wherefore, my brethren, when you 
come together to eat, wait for each other ; and if any 
one is hungry, let him eat at home, that he may not 
come under an ill judgment.' It is proper, therefore, 



40 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

to abstain from any servile* and intemperate habit, 
keeping the hands, and the couches, and the beard 
clean, and preserving a proper decorum of the face 
in eating and drinking, reaching out the hands in 
proper order, and at due intervals. Speaking whilst 
eating is to be avoided, for the voice is unintelligible 
and unpleasant while the mouth is full. . . Neither 
is it proper to eat and drink at the same time, for it 
is a great sign of intemperance to confound the pro- 
per seasons for each, and we are told, 'whether we 
eat or drink, to do all to the glory of God,' proposing 
to ourselves a true humility in all things. It appears 
to me indeed that the Lord hinted at something of 
what I have been saying, when he blessed the bread 
and broiled fish, with w^hich he feasted the disciples ; 

* This word affords a clue to the object in view through this 
part of the chapter, which sounds so strange to our ears : 
^aXo'TT^iTTsia,, slave-manners, was used to express any very great 
impropriety of behavior; but is especially applicable here, 
many of the first Christians being slaves, and therefore unaccus- 
tomed to those decencies of life which Clement is here incul- 
cating. The hard fare to which they were accustomed made 
them of course eager to profit by the liberality now first expe- 
rienced, and we find the givers of the feast blamed for tempting 
them into gluttony, by setting unwonted delicacies before them. 
The influence of Christianity in bettering the condition of the 
Pariah races of the countries where it was preached, was al- 
ready beginning to be felt : the next step was to be made by 
civilizing the unfortunate people who, till then, had been left in 
hopeless degradation. The anxiety of the good Clement, to 
make his humble converts behave themselves like gentlemen, is 
amusing : but the lesson was not without its use ; for the slave 
learned probably for the first time, in these lessons, to feel his 
dignity as a man. a^'mh; >tai ^i\a^ fxh i7rept]<pani. "Do not de- 
spise slaves, either male or female," says Ignatius, "neither let 
the slaves on their part be vainly puffed up, but for the glory of 
God serve so much the better, by how much the greater liberty 
they have received from God. Let them not seek to be freed 
from common service, lest they should be found slaves to their 
own desires." — Ignat. Ep. Pol. ^ 4. 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 41 

giving them thus an example of a simple and easily- 
obtained nourishment. But this is not the time for 
these considerations ; Ave have merely taken advan- 
tage of the present occasion to mention these things, 
that the chosen plants of the Logos may have their 
proper nurture, ' for though all is lawful to me, all 
is not expedient,' for they who always push their 
liberty to its utmost extent, will soon be tempted to 
go beyond it; and as justice is not likely to consort 
long with covetousness, so wise self-government is 

not acquired by intemperance And indeed 

those sorts of food are the most fit which can be used 
as they are, without the preparation of fire, for they 
are of readier attainment when wanted, and as I said 
before, a frugal table is desirable; for those who are 
luxurious in their food, nourishing their own morbid 
appetites, put themselves under the guidance of a 
gluttonous dESmon, which I do not scruple to call the 
dcemon of the belly, which is of all dasmons the worst 
and most ruinous : for such a person is like them 
whom we call ventriloquists ; the belly, not the 
mouth, speaks. Indeed, Matthew the Apostle used 
only grain and fruit, berries and herbs, without any 
meat ; and John the Baptist was yet more abstemious. 
Peter too abstained from swine's flesh till warned by 
the vision which bade him think nothing unclean 
which God had sanctified; nevertheless, the use of 
these things is indiff"erent, for 'not that which goeth 
into the mouth defileth the man,' but the taking it 

intemperately The middle way is best, as 

in all other things, so especially in the preparation 
of our meals, for extreme heights ofier but an unsta- 
ble footing, and we stand safest on common ground ; 
and this common ground is, not to be deprived of 
necessary things ; for natural appetites are kept 



42 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

within their proper bounds by aiFording them suffi- 
cient gratification. 

C. 2. '"Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake,' 
says the apostle to Timothj'-, for it is good to bring 
the help of an astringent to a languid constitution : 
but in small quantit}?-, lest, instead of benefiting, it 
should be found to produce a fullness which would 
render other remedies needful : since the natural 
drink for a thirsty man is water, and this simple 
beverage alone was supplied from the cleft rock by 
the Lord, for the use of the Hebrews of old ; for 
sobriety is especially necessary to wanderers. This 
is it which is meant by drinking the blood of Jesus, 
namely, that we participate in the incorruption of 
the Lord : for the strength of the Logos is, to the 
spirit, what the blood is to the flesh, the wine is 
mixed with water, the spirit with the man ; and this 
mixture feasts our bodies in faith, while the spirit 
leads us on to incorruption; again, the compound of 
both, of the wine and the Logos, is called the Eu- 
charist, namely an excellent and highly to be praised 
grace, whose partakers according to faith, are made 
excellent both in body and soul. The paternal will 
mystically minghng with the Spirit and the Logos 
produced the divine mixture, man ; for in truth the 
Spirit dwells in the soul which is guided by him, 
and the flesh is no less guided by the Logos, on 
which account also the Logos was made flesh. 

" I admire those who have chosen an austere life, 
and desire no other beverage than water, the medi- 
cine of a wise temperance, avoiding wine as they 
would the fire. I am, therefore, of opinion that it 
is desirable young men and maidens should, for the 
most part, forego this medicament (wine) altogether ; 
for to drink wine during the boiling season of youth, 
is adding fire to fire : and hence arise irregular de- 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 43 

sires, and licentious conduct ; for the circulation is 
hastened, the veins swelled, and the whole body 
excited before its time, by the action of wine on the 
system. The body inflames the soul, and it follows 
thus the guidance of the pulse, which impels to 
unlawful license, till very soon the fermenting hquor 
of youth overflows the bounds of modesty. It is 
needful then to endeavor to restrain the undue appe- 
tites of young men by taking from them the incite- 
ments of Bacchus, and rather administering antidotes 
which should act as a sedative to the soul, and allay 
restless desires. Those who require a mid-day meal, 
may eat bread, altogether without wine, and if thirsty, 
let them satisfy themselves with water only. In the 
evening, at supper, when our studies are over, and 
the air is cooler, wine may be used without harm 
perhaps, for it will but restore the lost warmth : but 
even then it should be taken very sparingly, until 
the chills of age have made it a useful medicine : 
and it is for the most part best to mix it with water, 
in which state it conduces most to health." — A 
description of the evils of drunkenness follows here, 
which need not be inserted, since, alas ! even after 
the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, the vice is 
still common enough to make its consequences but 
too well known. — " Well then has the apostle said, 
' Be not drunk with wine, in which is a shameful 
licentiousness ;' he seems to signify the impossibility 
of salvation [acotrjpia) to drunkenness, by the word 
dowTfta, which, in Greek, means equally luxury, 
and an incapacity for salvation. And even if our 
Lord changed water into wine at the marriage feast, 
he did not permit excess : for as we take food to 
prevent hunger, so we should drink only what is 
wanted to quench thirst ; or in winter to give the 
needful circulation to the blood, if it become too 



44 THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

languid. But for this what need to ask for Chian 
wine, if it be not at hand, or that of Ariusium, or 
any of those which are fetched from beyond sea, to 
satisfy a pampered palate ? Is not the production of 
our own country good enough ? and in this too a 
decorous conduct should be observed : not looking 
greedily at the liquor beforehand, nor drawing it in 
with open mouth, nor spilling it on the chin, nor on 
the vestments, in the hasty swallowing ; nor wetting 
the face in the drinking cups by too much eagerness, 
nor making a gugghng sound in the throat, like the 
pouring out of water from a narrow-necked vessel, 
for all this is indecorous and unpleasant to witness. 
Add to this that the love of drink is hurtful to the 
person himself. The Scythians, Ceks, Iberians and 
Thracians drink much, being altogether warlike 
nations; but we, who are a peaceable race, take 
our meals for the satisfying of our wants, not for 
the sake of exciting passions ; and drink soberly in 
friendly meetings. How do you imagine the Lord 
was wont to drink when for our sakes he was made 
man ? Do you think it was in such an unseemly 
fashion as we do ? Do you not suppose it was politely 
— elegantly — reasonably ? for we know that he too 
did partake of wine, since he too was a man: and 
he blessed the wine, saying, "take, drink, this is my 
blood:" — the blood of the vine- — for he allegorically 
calls the Logos, which was poured out for the taking 
away of sins, the holy fountain of joy. And from 
what he so clearly taught respecting entertainments, 
we ma.y learn, that even he who drinks wine, should 
do so with wise moderation ; for it was no drunkard 
that taught us our lesson ; yet that he was wont to 
drink wine is clear from the reproach of the Jews, 
' behold a glutton and a wine-bibber.' " 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 45 

C. 3. "Cups of gold and silver set out with pre- 
cious stones are useless, and only made to please 
the eye : for if you would drink warm liquids out of 
them, the heat of the metal makes the handhng them 
inconvenient; if cold, the quahty of the vessel spoils 
the hquor, and thus the drink of the rich man be- 
comes unwholesome These precious vases, 

therefore, which are both rare to be acquired and 
difficult to be kept, after all are not good for use. 
And the art of the carver, exhibited with a vain pride 
in glass, which is only rendered thereby more apt to 
break, is to be put away from among us. Silver 
sofas, silver basins and saucers, plates and dishes, 
beds of choice woods decorated with tortoise-shell 
and gold, with coverlets of purple and costly stuffs, 
are to be relinquished in like manner; for as the 
apostle says, the time is short, and it remains that 
both they that have wives be as though they had 
none, and they that buy as though they possessed 
not. For this cause also the Lord hath said ' Sell 
what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, fol- 
low me.' That is, follow the Lord stripped of all 
ostentation, stripped of all perishable pomp : what is 
really thine is goodness : — the only .thing which 
cannot be taken from thee, is, faith in God, and 
confession of him that suffered — the most precious 
possession is, benevolence towards thy fellow-men. 
I therefore applaud Plato, who, when treating of 
laws, openly condemns such useless luxuries. If 
the vessel be of earth, will it not be equally useful 
for ablution ? Shall we rest the worse, because our 
bed is not of ivory, or our coverlets tinted with Tyrian 
dyes? See now! The Lord ate from an humble 
dish; and recHned with his disciples on the grass ; 
and washed their feet girded with a towel ; the un- 



46 THE PtEDAGO&UE, book II. 

proud* God and Lord of all things brought no silver 
foot-bath from heaven for his use ; — when he asked 
for water from the Samaritan woman, he demanded 

no regal vase of gold to drink from In fine, 

our food, our clothing, our utensils, or whatever else 
may belong to our domestic economy, should be 
conformable to the Christian institutions, so that they 
may be such as will become, and are suited to the 
person, the time of life, the profession, and the period." 
C. 4. "Far be from our rational social meetings 
the miscalled gaieties and facetise of the heathen, who 
are wont to excite the passions by wine, and lascivious 
songs, and dancing ... all these things should be 
dismissed from our sober feasts ... all indecent sights 
and sounds, or, to speak briefly, all excesses and in- 
temperance of the senses; for such excesses are, in 
fact, a privation of them, as far as regards their true 
use. We should, therefore, take care to avoid all 
effeminate pleasures, all tickhng of the eyes and ears 
by licentious arts ; — the music that fills our thoughts 
should be the trump that will raise the dead, and our 
lyre should be a voice singing praises to God ; for 
man himself is the truest musical instrument for 
those who love peace. Those, indeed, who are 
curious in such things, will find many kinds of music 
suited for different occasions ; — for war, and for 
awakening the passions, whether of love or rage. 
Thus the Tyrrhenes in war use the trumpet, the 
Arcadians the pipe of Pan, the Sicihans the pipe 
called Tirix'tii, the Cretans the lyre, the Lacedasmoni- 
ans the flute, the Thracians the horn, and the Arabs 
the cymbals: but we use one instrument only, — the 
peaceful word wherewith we render homage to God. 

* ttTiKpo?. The coinage of an expressive word to translate 
this may be forgiven, for we have none that will fully render it. 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 47 

Our drinking together for friendship, then, 

should be of a twofold nature, according to our law: 
for if thou lovest the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor 
as thyself, let thy first social feast be with God, 
through the Eucharist, accompanied by psalmody; — 
the second with thy neighbor for the keeping up of 
friendship through an innocent and chaste familiarity. 
Thus the Apostle bids us let the Logos of the Lord 
dwell abundantly in us; for this Logos is conformable 
to times, to persons, and to places, and on such occa- 
sions is the companion of our wine cups also ; so that 
thus all things may be sanctified to the glory of God, 
and the good of man: therefore let us put away from 
our feasts the unseemly excesses of drunken plea- 
sures, the scattering of flowers, and the lascivious 
songs and music of unchaste women. 

C 5. " Mimics and buffoons* should find no 
place in our 'polity ; for since words are the expres- 
sion of the mind and manners, it is impossible that 
any one should speak ridiculously unless his mind 
and habits are ridiculous and frivolous also: for 
Uhe tree is not good which bears bad fruit, nor bad 
if it bear good fruit,' and words are the fruit of 
the mind. If, therefore, we exclude those who make 
this their trade from our society, much more must 
we abstain from becoming buffoons ourselves; for it 
would be absurd indeed to imitate the impudence 

which we are forbidden to listen to or witness 

We should never willingly make ourselves ridi- 
culous : for how can we without blame study thus to 
abuse the peculiar and most precious gift of man 
— even reason and speech? — for it is so that through 
shameless words, men arrive at shameless actions. 



* Those who wish to know the kind of persons here alluded 
to, will find such a character depicted in Xenophon's Banquet. 



48 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

Let our speech, then, be elegant, and graced with 
wit, but without buffoonery; and our manners re- 
fined, not Hcentious; for to speak briefly, no one can 
or ought to extirpate the feelings and needs which 
belong to oar animal nature, but they should be duly 
regulated, and indulged in the proper time and place. 
It is not because man is a laughing animal, that he 
is to be always laughing, any more than the horse is 
always neighing, though to neigh be natural to him. 
But neither, on the other hand, should we be melan- 
choly and unsocial, though grave. I prefer him, 
indeed, whose gravity is occasionally lighted by 
smiles, since his laugh will never degenerate into 
unhandsome mirth ; and if anything unseemJy come 
before him, he will blush rather than smile, showing 
thereby no sympathy in what is evil: and if he hear 
of misfortune, he will appear sad rather than pleased 
at it, for this first is the mark of a wise and humane 
man, while the latter is that of a cruel and ill nature." 
C. 6. "All indecent speech should not only be 
banished from our own society, but discouraged in 
others, by sternness of countenance, by turning away 
the face, by severe derision, and often by yet sharper 
words. For He hath said, "Those things which go 
out of the mouth defile the man," and show him to 
be a vulgar, untaught, licentious heathen, not, as is 
proper to man, well-mannered and sober-minded. 
And since vice corrupts by the hearing and the 
sight, the Divine Tutor, hke the masters of the pa- 
laestra, who place a guard over the ears of the youths 
lest they should be injured, places the guard of sober 
words over the ears of his pupils, that nothing enter- 
ing there may hurt the soul, or convey to it the vi- 
bration of licentious sounds ; and the sight he directs 
to the contemplation of proper objects, saying, it is 
better to fall by the feet than the eyes. And the 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 49 

Apostle, reprobating all immodest language, says, 
'Let no indelicate word proceed out of your mouth, 
but rather what is good,' . . . for it is written, 'by 
thy words wilt thou be justified, and by thy words 
wilt thou be condemned.' And what then are these 
defences for the ears, and these securities for the 
wandering eyes ? It is the conversation of good 
men, which pre-occupies the ground, and leaves no 
room for those who wish to mislead. 'Evil commu- 
nications corrupt good manners,' says the poet ;* 
and the Apostle expresses it in yet stronger terms. 
' Hold evil in abhorrence,' says he, 'but stick close 
to the good.' Turn away, then, from every immo- 
dest sound, and word, and sight; and much more 
does it become you to be pure from every immodest 
action, whether in exposing the body indecently, or 
seeking such sights. For this is the reason, it seems 
to me, that our Tutor permits us no indelicate lan- 
guage, that temptation to incontinence may be re- 
moved as far as possible, thus cutting up with a 
strong hand the very roots of evil, and forbidding not 
only the sin, but the inchnation to it. And it is not 
in the mention of these things that the indelicacy 
lies, when they are mentioned but to be reprobated: 
neither are the members of the body in themselves 
indecent ; but the ill use we make of them renders 
them so, and hence we rightly call only that lan- 
guage indecent which dwells pleasurably on circum- 
stances of evil." 

C. 7. " Far, far be it from us to mock any one, 
for from this arise strifes, and fightings, and enmi- 
ties. We hold that such scorns are the companions 
of drunkenness : and it is well said,t ' do not argue 

* Menander. 

t Ecclus. xxxi. 31. 



50 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 

with your neighbor at a feast, neither speak any 
uncivil word towards him,' for if the invitation to 
these meetings be given out of kindly feeling, the 
object of the feast is the promotion of friendship 
among the guests, and a mental grace thus attends 
the satisfaction of the bodily appetite. If then we 
meet for the promotion of good-will towards each 
other, how is it that buried enmities are dug up 
again by scornful jests ? Better is it to be silent 
than to contradict, since by this last we run the ha- 
zard of adding sin to ill manners. . . On the whole 
I advise, that young people of both sexes should ab- 
sent themselves from such banquets,* in order that 
they may not fail into improprieties ; for the unusual 
things they hear, and the improper sights presented 
to them on such occasions, while as yet their faith is 
fluctuating, and their very age prevents firmness of 
character, tend to make their declension towards vice 
more likely. Well does the wise man say, ' Do not 
sit with a married woman, nor rechne upon thine 
elbow beside her' — that is, do not frequent suppers, 
nor eat often with her ; for, he adds, ' neither meet 
with her in wine parties, lest thy heart inchne to 
her, and thy blood push thee to destruction.' And 
if a woman be invited, so that there is a necessity 
that she should go, then let her make her outward 
vestment a decent and modest covering, and within 
it carry an equal modesty in her heart. But for sin- 
gle women, it is an extreme disgrace to be present 
at a banquet of men in a state of intoxication." 

The writer goes on to give minute directions for 
a decent and proper behavior in company, recom- 
mending quiet and reserved manners; and depre- 

* i. e. Those of the heathen^ or where the practices of the 
heathen were allowed. 



THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK II. 51 

eating all eagerness about food, all boisterous laughter 
or rude speech, through a long chapfer which shows 
sufficiently the refinement of manners which formed 
a part of the character of the Christian in his opin- 
ion : a notion apparently taken up* from the con- 
templation of the politeness and refinement, joined 
with a noble simphcity, which characterized the 
manners of that perfect pattern of what man should 
be, which was then fresh in the recollection of all. 

Space will not allow of larger extracts from this 
part: enough perhaps has been given to show that 
he who practises Christianity, such as it was when 
fresh from the lips and example of its Teacher, will 
want no factitious rules of politeness; — the perfect 
Christian is the perfect gentleman also; — and the 
world has allowed this by the set of rules it has 
established as to manners, which teach men to attain 
by art and habit, what they would find to result 
naturally from that admiration and imitation of their 
Great Exemplar, which it was his object on earth to 
secure. He came to raise man to a higher state of 
being, and the refinement and spiritualization of the 
mind produces a correspondent refinement of man- 
ners. 

C. 8. Is devoted to the reproof of excessive luxury 
in perfumes and garlands of flowers. It appears that 
it was the custom to perfume not only the garments, 
the hair, and the skin, but also the house, beds, and 
utensils of all kinds : while the fields he says were 
stripped of flowers to form garlands that withered on 
the head, and by their excessive odor almost stupi- 
fied the senses. 

C. 9. Forbids a no less excessive luxury in the 
construction of beds, which appear to have been 

* Seel. ii. C.2. 



52 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 

made of carved ivory, with silver feet, in curious 
imitation of animals or reptiles ; to which were added 
coverlets embroidered with gold, and every other 
costly ornament which the wealth of a great com- 
mercial city was likely to bring into use. All this 
the Christian was to forego, satisfying himself with 
the requisite sleep and food, without being anxious 
for the body; but rather "keeping the mind intent 
upon God . . . that man may attain to the grace be- 
stowed on the angels, spending the hours stolen from 
sleep in striving after life>eternal." 

C. 10. Treats of marriage — " its purpose is the 
bringing forth of children, but its main object (^-£^05) 
is the bringing up of good children." Marriage 
therefore is to be contracted with a view to the glory 
of God and the happiness of man, by multiplying the 
number of heirs to immortahty : not from motives of 
interest or sensuality, and when contracted is to be 
truly and virtuously observed. 

C. 11 and 12. Enjoin moderation in dress. 



BOOK III. 

C. 1. Treats of true beauty. — "It appears to me 
that the greatest and best of all learning is the know- 
ledge of ourselves ; for if any one arrive at knowing 
himself, he will know God also ; and he who knows 
God, endeavors to resemble him : not wearing gold 
and long vestments ; but doing good and keeping 

his bodily wants in small compass For the 

man with whom the Logos is a fellow lodger, is be- 
come like God ; and is fair without striving to appear 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 53 

SO. This is real beauty. Heracleitus said truly, 
*Men are gods, gods, men ;' and this mystery is 
made clear in the Logos, for God was in man and 
man was God, and the will of the Father perfects the 
internuntius, namely the Logos, who is common to 
both.* The Son of God, the Saviour of men ; the 
minister of the one, the teacher of the other. And 
the flesh being in servitude, as Paul testifies, how 
can we ornam.ent the slave ? . . . But the sympathiz- 
ing God himself set free the flesh from the slavery 
of corruption and death, bestowing on it the gift of 
incorruption, and ornamenting it with the beauty of 
eternity, even immortality. And another beauty of 
man is love (dya?t»;), for love, according to the Apostle, 
*sufFereth long and is kind, envieth not, is not rash, 
is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not its own.'t 

C. 2. "It is not therefore the outward appearance 
of man, but the soul that should be beautified with 
the ornament of goodness : indeed it may be said 
that the flesh also should have the ornament of tem- 
perance. Women who are anxious for a fair ex- 
terior, and leave the interior uncultivated, try to 
conceal the ugliness of their souls after the fashion 
of the Egyptians ; among whom you find temples 
with porticos, and vestibules, and sacred groves; — 
and their halls are surrounded with numberless 
columns, and the walls are resplendent with foreign 
stones and skillful paintings, and the temples are 

* I have not dared to do more than translate these words : 
the sense appears to be that the Logos being perfect God joined 
to perfect man, he stood between the two worlds, making God's 
will manifest to men, which could only be known by means of 
human speech : — and giving man, in turn, a resting-place for 
his mind, whence he might address God. 

t 1 Cor. xiii. 4. 8. 
5 



54 THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 

brilliant with gold and silver and amber, and many- 
colored gems from India and -Ethiopia, and the 
adyta are shaded with gold-embroidered hangings; 
— but if you go into the deep interior of the place, 
and eagerly seek to see what you suppose will be 
most worth your attention, — the statue which occu- 
pies the temple : — a priest of grave aspect, from 
among those who sacrifice in the holy place, singing 
a paean in the Egyptian tongue, lifts the veil a little, 
as if to show the God ; and then there is much room 
for laughter , at the deity honored ; for you will not 
find the God that you are seeking within, but a cat, 
or a crocodile, or a serpent of the country, or some 
such animal; unworthy of the temple, but fitted for 
a cavern, or a den, or a marsh; you see the beast 
rolling upon purple coverlets, and this is the god of 
the Egyptians. Those women, therefore, who cover 
themselves with gold, and exercise themselves in 
curling their hair, and anointing their cheeks, and 
penciling their eyes, and twisting their locks, and 
all the other ill arts of idleness, to ornament the 
fleshly case, appear to me to be true Egyptians in 
their proceedings ; they attract superstitious lovers, 
but when the veil of the temple is lifted, I mean the 
fillets and the vestments, the gold, the paint, and the 
ceruse ; — that is, the covering which is made of 
these, as if there were true beauty within — all is 
abominable I well know. You will not there find 
the image of God placed in the sanctuary, as is 
fitting, but an adulterous soul inhabits the adytum, 
and shows itself the real beast ; the ape daubed 
white,— and the old seducing serpent, corroding the 
mind by the love of admiration, has the soul for its 
cavern, and fills it with poison and as cata- 
plasms and ointments usually announce to us that 
the person is ill who is thus treated, so the medica- 



THE PiEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 55 

merits and coverings above mentioned, indicate the 

sickness of the soul for them are needful the 

theatre, and public processions, and abundance of 
gazers, and they must loiter through the temples, 
and walk in the streets, so that they may be seen by 
all. Such persons take a pride in an appearance 
that shall captivate the eyes of others, not in the 
right affections of the heart." 

C. 3. The writer reproves the passion for orna- 
ment in the male sex also, which among the Greeks 
had long been carried to great excess. It may be 
here noticed, once for all, that the practices of the 
heathen were such as, thanks to the purifying in- 
fluences of Christianity, we now shrink from even 
the mention of : and if the stern reproof of the am- 
bassador on Christ's behalf touch upon subjects 
which the refinement of modern manners has ban- 
ished from any expression in words, let us not con- 
demn the preacher who lashed the vices of paganism 
with the severity that they deserved, and won men 
to Christ by the contrast he presented to their minds 
between the impurities then in daily practice, and 
the purity of Christianity ; — but rather thank God, 
who by his presence on earth, first checked the foul 
disease of society ; — and next to God, those fearless 
martyrs who scrupled not to hold up before emperors 
and proconsuls, a faithful picture of their manners. 
The wide difference between the state of things now 
and then, affords the best comment on their labors ; 
for vice now hides itself from the pubhc gaze, and 
no longer intrudes itself upon the innocent. 

C. 4. Follows up the subject; and the writer 
points out the persons whose society was to be 
avoided, in order to the preservation of Christian 
purity. It affords a frightful picture of the state of 
society, disgusting indeed to the reader, but not 



56 THE P-EDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 

without its value, even now ; for it shows us what 
we have been rescued from, and affords fresh ground 
of thankfulness for that heavenly love which conde- 
scended to show man what he might and should be. 
The allusions constantly made by the fathers of the 
first and second centuries to Christ as a man, ami- 
able, pohshed and attractive in his manners, testify 
sufficiently to the influence of the example during 
the period when his actual human life was remem- 
bered, even traditionally. It were to be wished that 
we still pictured to ourselves the individual man 
whom God himself made our "ensample," more 
than that mysterious Logos which seems to have 
especially chosen a human form for the purpose of 
communication with man, in order that finite facul- 
ties might not be overpowered by the contemplation 
of the Infinite. The human nature of Christ is 
needful to man as a stepping-stone by which to 
approach God, and we should use it as such. 

C. 5. Relates to the use of the bath, and con- 
demns the common heathen practice which allowed 
the two sexes to bathe together. 

C. 6 and 7. Show that the Christian is rich in all 
that constitutes man's best wealth, and recommend a 
prudent frugality. 

C. 8, 9, 10. Continue the same subjects. 

C. 11. Sums up the rules already given with re- 
gard to the common affairs of life. " The use of gold 
ornaments and soft ointments," says the writer, " is 
not to be wholly proscribed ; but in that, as in all 
else, a due moderation is to be observed; curbing 
these irrational tastes lest they should lead us into a 
life of luxury, to the neglect of better things." .... 
"But it will be said, 'we are not all philosophers' — 
do you then not seek after life either? what is it you 
mean ? or how is it that you beheve ? How can any 



THE PtEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 57 

one love God and his neighbor without being a philo- 
sopher in the best sense of the word ? or how can he 
love himself without also loving life ? But he will 
say * 1 have not learned letters ;' but even if you have 
not learned to read, this does not hinder you from 
learning by hearing ; for faith is not the profession of 
the learned in the wisdom of this world only, but of 
those who are wise according to God ; for this is a 
learning which requires no letters ; and its book, 
which is at once divine, and intelligible to the most 

ignorant, is called Love There is nothing to 

hinder the administering the affairs of this world at 
once handsomely and according to the will of God ; 
as, for instance, he who buys or sells mast never 
make use of two prices, but should be careful to 
speak the truth. . . . Let not him who sells swear to 
the goodness of his wares, and let him avoid oaths 
also in other things ; and in this the market man and 
the tavern-keeper may be philosophers, for it is writ- 
ten, use not the name of the Lord in vain matters, 
for the Lord will not hold him pure who brings his 
name forward on vain occasions. It is proper that 
both the woman and the man should come into the 
church decently dressed ; with no studied steps ; in 
silence, and with a mind trained to real benevolence ; 
chaste in body ; chaste in heart ; fitted to pray to 
God. Furthermore, it is right that the woman should 
be veiled, save when she is at home ; for this is re- 
spectable and avoids offence. And it is desirable not 
to adopt these manners for the occasion merely, but 
to imitate during the whole of life the conduct of 
those whom Christ has made perfect, and be really, 
and not in appearance only, gentle, and reverend, 
and kind. Now, I know not how, the manners and 
appearance seem to change with the place, as polypi 
are said to change color according to the stones they 



58 THE PEDAGOGUE, BOOK III. 

are fixed on ; and those persons who have seemed 
devout while in the place of congregation, put away 
their apparent change of manners when they leave 
it, and assimilate themselves to the multitude with 
whom they are in daily intercourse ; or rather, they 
are to be accused of having put on a feigned holiness, 
hiding their real disposition: and thus those who 
have heard the word of God with a show of rever- 
ence, leave what they have heard behind them when 
they quit the place, and resume the evil habits of the 
heathen." 

C. 12. Proves the foregoing rules of conduct from 
passages of Scripture, and concludes with the fol- 
lowing prayer, " Be propitious to thine own children, 
O Master ! Father ! Charioteer of Israel ! Son and 
Father both one! Lord! Give to us that follow thjr 
commands, that we may be filled with the likeness 
of the image, and feel the power of the good God, of 
the mild Judge ! and grant that those whose lives are 
guided according to thy peace, may be placed in thy 
citjr, and sailing over the rolling waves of sin, may 
be borne quietly on by thy Holy Spirit with the 
wisdom which is ineffable :■ — nightly, after the day 
is past, till the perfect day again, giving thanks and 
praising, praising and giving thanks, to the One 
Father and Son, Son and Father, 'I'utor and Teacher 
Son, with the Holy Spirit; for which One all things 
exist, in whom are all things, through which One are 
all things, through whom is eternity, of whom we all 
are members, for whose honor are all ages. The 
Good in all things — the Fair in all things — the 
Wise in all things — the Just in all things. To whom 
be honor now and forever. Amen." 



. STROMATA.— Book I. 

Having treated at length on the conduct to be ob- 
served by the new converts to Christianity through 
all the affairs of life, the writer next proceeds to trace 
the character of what he calls the yvioGtixb^i or per- 
fect Christian : of one, namely, who, having long 
endeavored to regulate his Hfe by the precepts of his 
Lord, has step by step advanced to a complete amal- 
gamation of his own pleasure, and will, and inten- 
tions, with those of the Divine Person in whose steps 
he has been treading, and thus may be said to pos- 
sess the key of true science. Other things are men- 
tioned incidentally, and the writer shows, by a refer- 
ence to the ancient systems of philosophy, that the 
light afforded to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, 
was of the kind best calculated to prepare them for 
that more perfect dispensation, which, affording to 
all the assurance of what till then had been but hopes, 
was to finish the civilization of the world ; so that, 
thenceforward, the knowledge and refinement which 
had seemed to be the privilege of the few, might 
become the birthright of the many. He thus explains 
the purport of his work. 

C. 1. "I am not unaware of the things that are 
murmured among some ignorantly timid persons, 
who say that it is incumbent on us to apply simply 
to the matters pertaining to the faith, but that ex- 
ternal and superfluous things — i. e. Gentile learning 
— are to be passed over, for that it is vain to trouble 
ourselves with what is useless towards our great 
object. These consider philosophy to be the pest of 



60 STROMATA, BOOK I. 

life, and think it was discovered by some evil mind 
for the bane of men ; I, on the contrary, think that 
ill weeds cannot be sown by a good husbandman, 
and in these books which I term Stromata, I shall 
show that there are abundant indications of the divine 
origin of Philosophy." 

C. 2. "With regard to the works of those who, 
according to the necessity of the times, had embraced 
the Greek opinions, I thus reply to the lovers of ob- 
jection. Whether philosophy be useful or not, it is 
at least useful to have some firm opinion on the sub- 
ject ; ^nd therefore the study is not without its value : 
neither can the Greeks be fairly condemned by those 
who have merely glanced over their writings, since 
they cannot be understood by any who have not care- 
fully perused them, and unveiled, as it were, the 
science there taught. For amid their many modes 
of teaching, their disciples were at least led towards 
true principles; nor can that philosophy be perni- 
cious, as some contend, by which it is clear that the 
image of truth — that divine gift — was bestowed upon 
the Greeks." 

C. 5. "Indeed, before the coming of the Lord, 
philosophy was needful to the Greeks for the purifi- 
cation of their lives, (stj 8ixa(,o6vv7^v,) and even now 
it is useful towards piety, as supplying a rudimentary 
teaching for those who may afterwards receive the 
faith upon conviction. For God is indeed the cause 
of all good things: of some pre-eminently and im- 
mediately, as of the old and new covenant : of others 
mediately, by means of reason and argument ; as 
philosophy, which probably he gave to the Greeks 
before the Lord himself came, in order to call them 
also to his service. For philosophy acted the part of 
a schoolmaster to the Greeks, as the Mosaic law did 
to the Jews, for the purpose of bringing men to Christ ; 



STROMATA, BOOK I. 61 

thus preparing the way for such as were to be farther 
perfected by him. We know that the way of truth 
is one only; but into it, as into a great river, many 
streams flow from different quarters." 

C. 7. " It appears, therefore, that the Greek 
rudimentary instructions came from heaven to man : 
not, indeed, as I said before, pre-eminently and im- 
mediately ; but as the showers which fall from heaven 
light on all parts but cause the growth of very dif- 
ferent plants — in some cherishing the produce of a 
good soil, in others causing a vegetation which soon 
dries up— so it may be conceived of this. And here 
the parable of the sower is useful to us : for there is 
one spiritual husbandman for the human field, who 
from the foundation of the world sows good seed in 
it, and who waters it according to the various periods, 
with the Lord, the Logos : but at different times and 
seasons the crop is different; for the husbandman 
does not sow wheat alone, — there being many sorts 
of useful grain, — but it may be barley, or beans, 
or peas, or seeds of garden vegetables and flowers. 
So also may the art of the agriculturist be bestowed 
in the raising of forest or fruit trees, or in the feeding 
of different kinds of cattle; the arts differ; but are 
all, in their various ways, useful to life. Thus, there- 
fore, it is in philosophy, — I do not speak of this or 
that sect merely, — whatever is taught, by all or any 
of them, that conduces to piety and wisdom, I term 
divine ; not that part of it which consists of logical 
questions and paradoxes. . . . The roads to right- 
eousness are many and various, for God, being good, 
saves in many different ways. If indeed thou 
wouldst ask the royal and authentic road, thou mayst 
hear, 'This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous 
may enter therein,' for though many gates be open, 
this peculiar one is unlocked by Christ himself, and 
6 



62 • STROMATA, BOOK I. 

blessed are they who are able to enter it, and direct 
their steps towards well understood holiness (tj/ 

C. 9. "Some indeed who think themselves well 
gifted naturally, will not so much as touch philosophy 
or dialectics, but not choosing to learn anything from 
the study of nature, require to have the single and 
naked faith: as if one should scorn the culture of the 
vine, determined to have only the grapes. Yet the 
Lord makes the vine an allegory; from it, by care, 
and the art of the husbandman wisely bestowed, the 
fruit is to be obtained ; it must be dug, and cultivated, 
and tied, and pruned; and after employing all the 
tools and the art of the husbandman, we obtain a 
good crop. And if it be said that the prophets and 
apostles did not know the arts by which philosophy 
exercises the mind, it must be recollected that they 
were taught by the prophetic spirit telling them 
hidden things ; because as quickness of perception is 
not given to all, it was necessary, for the clearness of 
their teaching, that they should themselves be in- 
structed. . . . What say these objectors, then? That 
it is proper to speak and act without reason ?* we 
shall act unreasonably then ; but all rational acts are 
done through God, 'and nothing was done without 
him,' it is said; namely, nothing was done without 
the Logos (reason) of God. And did not the Lord 
do all according to reason? (^.6^9.) Beasts indeed 
work, compelled to it by fear; but do those whom we 
call orthodox, proceed in good works without know- 
ing what they are doing?" 

C. 10. After recommending a decent attention to 
rhetoric, so as to be able to expound the truth efiectu- 
ally, but cautioning his readers, at the same time, 
i. 

* ^^)C^ ■ ' 'Ik rS Xoya yinrai j a play upon the word Logos. 



STROMATA, BOOK I. 63 

against the endless arts of the sophists, he adds, that 
''speech is but as the vestment of the body, actions 
are the bones and the nerves .... the Gnostic there- 
fore will be satisfied if he finds even one wilHng to 
listen to him and profit by his teaching." 

C. 13. "If then, however numerous the modes of 
error, the truth be but one, we may imagine the dif- 
ferent sects of philosophy, as well barbarian as Greek, 
seizing on it as the Bacchantes seized on Pentheus, 
and, having torn it piecemeal, each carrying off a 
])art, and then vaunting itself of possessing the whole. 
Yet I think the dawn of that light in the east illu- 
minated them all; for it may be shown that all who 
were eager for the truth, whether Greeks or barba- 
rians, did in fact carry off, some not a little, of that 
word of truth which they sought .... the frag- 
ments of which being again united, the perfect Logos, 
or Truth, is then securely seen and known : for he 
who can properly be called a Gnostic (i. e., well-in- 
structed Christian) must be well imbued with all 
knowledge." 

C. 17. " But say some, it is written that all teach- 
ers before the coming of the Lord were thieves and 
robbers : yet the prophets who were of old time sent 
and inspired by the Lord, were not robbers, but 
ministers. But philosophy, say they, was not sent 
by the Lord, but stole what it taught. But do we 
not say that he who having power to prevent a rob- 
bery, permits it, is in some sort the cause of it ? Now 
nothing can be an obstacle to God, or oppose itself to 
Him ; for He is the Lord and Ruler of all things ; and 
those, even, who may be partly in apostacy from 
Him, are made use of by his providence, as the phy- 
sician uses diseases, curing perhaps an inflammation 
by a bhster. Thus the Providence which is over 
the whole prevents the acts done by man's free-will 



64 STROMATA, BOOK II. 

from being sources of harm, or even useless towards 
good : for the wisdom, and excellence, and power of 
the Deity are not seen alone in his doing good, for 
that may be said to be as much the nature of God, 
as it is that of fire to warm, or of fight to illuminate ; 
but chiefly in this, that the things which are devised 
for evil by the ill-intentioned, are caused by him to 
finish in what is good and useful; and thus he makes 
that serviceable, which at first appeared useless, or 
bad. Thus even if philosophy should have been 
stolen by a theft, like that of Prometheus, it has in 
it some spark of fire ready for kindling a light from 
the embers, — a track of Divine Wisdom to mark the 
way towards God." 



BOOK II. 

C. 2. "The philosophy of the barbarians* which 
we follow, is in fact the perfect and true system : in 
it is included the contemplation of nature, and of 
all that passes in the world of sensible objects, as well 
as what is purely intellectual. Its doctrines, accom- 
panied by a rightly ordered polity and discipline, lead 
us, through that wisdom which is the artificer of ail 
things, towards the Great Ruler of the universe ; who 
is indeed difficult to be apprehended, and hard to be 
searched out, since he seems always to be receding 
from our senses as we advance, and always to be at 
a distance from the pursuer. Yet He, being thus 

* The reader need hardly be reminded that all who were not 
Greeks were termed barbarians by the Greek writers. 



STROMATA, BOOK II. 65 

afar off, voluntarily approaches us : — an inexpressible 
wonder ! 'I am a God near at liand,saith the Lord' 
— far off indeed as to his nature, for how can the 
created approach the uncreated ? but near by his 
power, which embraces all things. 'If any one 
doeth a secret thing,' says he, 'do not I, the Lord^ 
see it?' He is present to us in the overlooking, be- 
neficent, instructing power which, as it were, leads 
us by the hand ; even the power of God. Where- 
fore Moses, persuaded that God could never be tho- 
roughly known by human wisdom, said ' Show me 
thyself' — and forced himself to enter into the dark- 
ness where was the voice of God : that is, into the 
hidden and mysterious knowledge of the Self-existent. 
But the place of God is not in the darkness, but be- 
yond all place, and time, or any property of created 
things : dwelling in no part, neither contained, nor 
circumscribed. 'How will ye build a house for me? 
saith the Lord' — for he is boundless ; and the heavens 
are called his throne, not because he is there, but be- 
cause his benevolence rests with pleasure upon his 
work. It is evident, then, that the truth is veiled ; 
yet one specimen of it being shown, that one will 
soon guide us to more : how indeed should those not 
receive it who are both able and willing to learn? and 
he who has before acquired wisdom, will, through 
this knowledge,* become wiser ; for it is not the 
drossy ore of reason that is propounded by the words 
and the men inspired by God, neither do they twine 
nets to entangle the young, like the sophists ; who, 
after all, are unable to teach anything of real truth ; 
for they who possess the Holy Spirit investigate the 
deep things of God. But it is not for those whose 

* xaTa rfivyvZo-iv by the gnosis, or last stage of Christian initia- 
tion. 



bb STROMATA, BOOK lU 

lives are ill regulated, to drink of that pure fountain 
of living water. Well did the excellent Heracleitus 
say that 'there are many who neither know what is 
passing within themselves, nor, when taught, become 
wiser, otherwise than in their own conceit, — and 
does not the philosopher seem here to blame the 
unbehever? .... The faith which the Greeks call 
barbarian, and accuse of being empty and vain, is a 
voluntary devotion of the mind to unseen things ;* 
the full assent of piety, ' the foundation {vTtostaavi) of 
things hoped for ; the argumentative proof {H-ksyxos) 
of things not seen,' as says the divine apostle. . . . 
Since then we make a choice when we find a thing 
desirable, the desire for it is an act of the mind, and 
is in fact an appetite of the intellect : — and if a free 
choice be the great principle of action in man, then 
faith will also be found to be an active principle. 
The foundation indeed of a wise choice is some pre- 
vious demonstration, and it is made in consequence 
of our faith or belief in that demonstration ; for the 
great principle of all prudence is willingly following 
some beneficial course. It is indeed of great moment 
to the last stage of our Christian life (icj yvwon^) to 
make a resolute choice : for thus the early contempla- 
tions of faith become a science fixed on an immutable 
foundation. Philosophers define science to be — a 
habit of mind firmly founded in reason; and is there 
any other definition of true piety, which has for its 
only teacher the Divine Reason? {6 Aoxo^.) I think 
not." 

C. 3. " But the followers of Basileides contend 
that faith is a natural gift ; for that being the conse- 

* TT^oXn^if BKitrto?. This was a term well known in philosophy, 
particularly in the Epicurean school ; 7r§cX»4/{j is, by the Epi- 
cureans, explained to be, " the representation of unseen things 
to the mind." Vide Diog. Laert. in vit, Epicuri. 



STROMATA, BOOK II. 67 

quence of a praeelection to salvation, its teaching is 
without demonstration, and consists only in an intel- 
lectual comprehension. The disciples of Valentinus 
differ somewhat, and allowing us simple people our 
faith, claim for themselves, who by nature are heirs 
to salvation, the yi^wst?,* or perfect knowledge, which 
they set as high above faith as the spiritual is above 
the animal. The disciples of Basileides say farther, 
that faith and election are the same thing; that the 
whole constitution of earthly faith is consequent on a 
supra-mundane election, and that thus the hope of 
every one may be regulated by the sum of faith 
which is bestowed upon him. But if faith be thus 
an advantage bestowed in our natural constitution, 
how can it be the good work of a free choice ? and 
how can he who does not believe, receive a just 
retribution for his wilful rejection of God's truths ? 
since he is as much without choice in the matter as 
the beHever : and faith and unbelief, having thus no 
proper difference, neither can incur either praise or 
blame, if we rightly consider ; for both are led to 
their conclusion by a physical necessity, guided by 
the overwhelming power of Him who created all 
things : and the inchnation, which is the prime mover 
in all matters of choice, thus remains wholly idle. . . 
But, for my part, I know no animal whose internal 
will is thus overruled by external necessity ; and if 
it were so, what would become of that repentance of 
the unbeliever through which he obtains the de- 
liverance from his sins?" 

C. 4. " But we, who have received from Scripture 
the doctrine that a full power of choice or rejection 

* The yvMo-ii; or knowledge, thus claimed, gave to this sect 
the title of Gnostics ; they seem in the first instance to have 
been strong predestinarians; afterwards many strange notions 
respecting the Deity were added to their doctrines. 



68 STROMATA, BOOK II. 

has been bestowed on us by the Lord, remain in the 
faith upon a steady conviction, showing that our 
spirit is eagerly bent on the attainment of the true 
life, and that we have behoved the voice of God. 
For he who has behoved the Logos, or Divine Rea- 
son, knows that the thing is true, for the Logos is 
truth. There are four things, indeed, in which truth 
may exist, — in the senses, in the mind, in science, 
and in opinion: — from the union of the mind and 
sense results science ; for the same evidence is com- 
mon to the mind and to the senses, and sensible 
things form the steps towards science : but faith, 
though coming by the road of the senses, leaves un- 
certain opinion behind; hastening forwards towards 
what is free from falsehood, and having reached the 
truth it remains firm. And if any one should say 
that science is demonstrable by reason, let him un- 
derstand that first principles are not demonstrable, 
and are due neither to art nor study, but remain as 
necessary axioms. The principle and beginning of 
all things in science as well as elsewhere, must be 
faith — behef, that is, in some indemonstrable proposi- 
tions. . . . Science, then, is a habit of demonstration; 
faith, a sfrace bestowed, which, througfh indemonstra- 
ble things, proceeds to the universal simple principle, 
which neither exists with matter, nor is matter, nor 
subsists in matter. Unbehevers, indeed, as it appears, 
would drag heaven and the invisible world down to 
earth, till they could handle it like stones and wood, 
as Plato says. For all such things they can touch; 
and they affirm that nothing that is without tangi- 
bility and other sensible properties, has any existence 
at all: defining body and existence to be the same ; 
yet they nevertheless contradict themselves, by al- 
lowing that there is something incorporeal and per- 



STROM AT A, BOOK II. 69 

ceptible only by the mind, which they term species 
or idea." 

"In like manner as, in order to learn the art of a 
mechanic, it is needful, not merely to wish to become 
a good workman, but to observe his mode of doing 
things, and obediently to follow his teaching; so the 
beheving in the Logos, whom we term our Master, 
consists in obedience to his precepts, withstanding 
him in nothing : for how indeed can we withstand 
God ? Knowledge (yvwtytj) therefore is faith, and 
faith is knowledge, for by some divine arrangement 
they mutually lead and are led by each other, in 
perfect companionship. Epicurus .... considers 
Tt^o-krj-^ci* to be the faith of the mind; and he defines 
this word to mean, an application of the mind to 
something evident, and the understanding of the 
thing thus evident to us : no one can either search, 
or doubt, or- be of any opinion, or argue a point 
without this previous apprehension of the subject 
{%upi? Ttpo'k'yj-^scoi). How indeed should any one either 
seek or learn unless he knows beforehand that there 
is something to be sought or learned ? But he who 
learns, changes this anticipation (rtpoTi^y^/u) into com- 
prehension [xatd'k'yi'C^iv), and if he who learns, knows 
what is desirable to be learnt by means of this anti- 
cipating knowledge, he has ears capable of receiving 
the truth. Blessed is he then who speaks to ears 
capable of thus hearing, and as certainly blessed is 
he who is, in like manner, able to hear and to obey; 
for so to hear is to understand. If faith then be no- 
thing more than this 7tp6-k7j-^ig of the understanding 
as to the things spoken, and this be obedience ; and 
if intelligence of the matter be persuasion ; then no 
one learns without faith, because none can learn with- 

* TTfo'kn^'^i strictly means a laying hold of beforehand. 



70 STROMATA, BOOK II. 

out this fore feeling ; and thus what the prophet says* 
is shown to be true, ' Unless ye believe ye cannot 
understand;' and thus too Heracleitus the Ephesian 
has paraphrased the same idea, saying, ' Unless a 
nrian hopes, he will not find what he did not hope.' " 

C. 6. "To will is the work of the soul; action 
cannot be accomplished without the body. — Repent- 
ancet is a tardy knowledge of what is right, but the 
yvtocrtj,properly speaking, is innocence from the first.ij: 
Repentance, then, is the good work of faith, for if a 
man does not beheve that to be sin by which he was 
at first held captive, he will not endeavor to get free ; 
and if he does not believe punishment to hang over 
the transgressor, — salvation to be the portion of him 
who lives according to the Divine precepts, — neither 
will he alter. For hope springs from faith.^ The 
followers of Basileides define faith to be the consent 
of the soul to something which does not move the 
sense, because it is not present. But hope is- the 
expectation of possession, and faith also is necessarily 
expectation ; but he is the believer who keeps, with- 
out transgressing, the things committed to him : for 
God commits to us his words, and these divine words 
are his precepts, to which must be joined the faithful 
observation of them. Such a believer is the faithful 
servant, (68?to$ 6 rttVo?) whom the Lord praises. 

" Let not the faith then be any longer hastily re- 
proached by the heathen as simple, and vulgar, and 
every day : — for if it were of human institution, as 



* Is. vii. 9. 

•f" fxBTctvoia is an after perception : the derivation of the word 
affords room for a play upon it, which Clement at all times de- 
lights in. 

t In all these cases the writer refers to the then state of the 
world : the first innocence here spoken of is the early profes- 
sion of Christianity, the repentance is the change from heathen, 
to Christian belief and practice. 



STROMATA, BOOK II. 71 

the Greeks imagine, it would ere this have come to 
naught ; but if, on the contrary, it increases till there 
is no place where it is not, I say that this faith, whe- 
ther it be founded on love, or whether, as some say, 
on fear, — is at any rate divine ; since it can neither 
be enticed nor dragged away by the love of the 
world, nor dissolved by present fear .... Faith is 
the foundation of love (dydrtrj), which in its turn leads 
to beneficence. The change, then, by which an un- 
believer becomes a believer, holding the faith in fear 
and hope, is clearly divine ; faith gives us the first 
tendency to seek salvation, after that come fear, and 
hope, and repentance ; — and self-command and pa- 
tience going first, lead us to perfect love and know- 
ledge.* Well, therefore, says the apostle Barnabas, 
' What I have received in part, I am diligent to send 
to you by little and little, that with your faith you 
may possess perfect knowledge' {te%sLav yvCjatv), and 
the coadjutors of our faith are fear and patience ; our 
allies are equanimity and self-command ; and if we 
remain holily and chastely in the practice of things 
pertaining to the Lord, with these virtues we shall 
find, that wisdom, intelligence, science, and perfect' 
knowledge (yvwc^t?) will be joyfully associated. The 
elements of this last stage of Christian knowledge 
being the before-mentioned virtues, it is clear that 
the most important element of all must be the faith 
which is as necessary to the Gnostic as breath is to 
life ; for as without the four elements we cannot exist, 
so neither without faith can we attain to the Gnosis. 
And this is the basis of the truth." 

C. 7. "But say some, fear is an irrational pas- 

* Ittj'te ayaTTnv, ETT* T£ j-vais-jv, i. e.j to the last stage of the 
Christian initiation, in which the believer became one with the 
Divine Logos ; — wise and affectionate as the well remembered 
Saviour. 



72 STROMATA, BOOK II. 

sion. How say you? can this definition avail when 
the commandment is given me by reason (6ta xoys), 
for the commandment holds fear over us as a part of 
discipline, in order that through it we may grow 
wise. Fear therefore is not irrational, but rather 
rational, when it persuades to such things as not to 
kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear 
false witness. . . . We will see what are the things 
which the law bids us fear : for they are not those 
things which are neither vice nor virtue, such as 

poverty, sickness, and the like but real evils, 

such as adultery, and other vices of that kind, — 
ignorance, — injustice, that sickness of the soul, — 
death; — not that death which separates soul and 
body, but that death whereby the soul is separated 
from the truth. These are, indeed, great and fearful 
evils, as well as the actions which proceed from 
them. 

"How should the law not be good which has 
Christ for its teacher, and which leads us, through 
its salutary fear, to perfection through Christ? 'I 
will not the death of a sinner,' says he, 'but rather 
his repentance.' . . . And I think he calls ignorance, 
death." 

C. 9. "And this fear leads both to repentance and 
to hope : for hope is that confident looking for of the 
absent good which lays hold on whatever falls out, 
for a cause of pleasant anticipation: and this we 
have learned to improve into love. And this love 
(ayaTivj) Consists in a perfect union of purpose be- 
tween the reason and the life and actions ; or to 
speak briefly, in the one mindedness of life ; or in a 
wide-spreading friendship and kindness joined to 
right reason in the usage of our companions. Hence 
we call those brothers who are born again by the 
agency of the same Word {t^ avt^ T^oy^). And in 



STROMATA, BOOK II. 73 

this love also is included hospitality, which is a stu- 
died kindness towards strangers Since then 

these virtues mutually accompany each other, what 
use is there in many words ? for we have already 
shown that faith hopes through repentance; and 
believes through solicitude ; and that patience and 
exercise in these things, united with instruction, will 
produce love, which is the completion of knowledge. 
.... The Deity alone is wise by nature ; and the 
Wisdom, which is the power of God, is the teacher 
of the truth. Therefore the philosopher also who 
loves the truth, is for that love to be accounted a 
friend." 

C. 10. " Our philosopher then requires these three 
things for the completion of his character: first, the 
view of the truth ; secondly, the fulfilment of the 
commandments ; thirdly, the instruction of good 
men ; and when these all come together the Gnostic 
is completed. But if any of these be wanting, his 
knowledge is lame." 

C. 11. "He therefore, who is a true Gnostic, ab- 
stains from the sins of reason and speech, of under- 
standing, of sense, and of action; having heard that 
he who looks with desire commits adultery in his 
heart: and having well fixed in his mind that 
* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God,' and that 'not what goeth in at the mouth pol- 
luteth a man, but that rather which goeth out of the 
mouth; — for from the heart cometh our conversa- 
tion.' .... Faith and complete knowledge of the 
truth teach the soul which receives them to be steady 
in itself: but the companions of falsehood are change, 
declensions, apostacy, as those of the Gnostic are 
tranquillity, permanence, peace." 

C. 12. "In faith as in time, since both are tAvo- 
parted, we find tAvo indwelHng virtues ; for the past 



-il 



74 STROMATA, BOOK II. 



time has memory, the future has hope; and we be- 
lieve that as the past has happened, so the future 
will; and again, we love as having possessed the 
past, and holding the future by faith. The Gnostic 
then, who knows the One God, finds love engen- 
dered in himself by all the things around him. 'And 
behold all things that he made were very good.' He 
knows this and wonders." 

C. 17. " It seems to me that we never cease to 
understand the Scriptures carnally, continually re- 
ferring to our own passions the will of the passionless 
God; supposing it to be guided by emotions like our 
own: but if we are capable of supposing such to be 
the case with the great Creator of all things, we err 
atheistically. As for the constitution of the Divinity, 
no one is capable of explaining it thoroughly: in 
order, however, that we, who are in the bonds of 
the flesh, might understand as much as we are able 
to do, he spoke to us by the prophets ; the Lord ac- 
commodating himself thus savingly to the weakness 
of man. Since then, it is the Avill of God to save 
him who obeys His commands and repents of his 
sins, we rejoice over our salvation; and the Lord 
who spake by the prophets, appropriates to himself 
our joy ; as he does in the Gospel, where speaking 
as a lover of man, he says, ' I was hungry and ye 
gave me to eat, I was thirsty and ye gave me to 
drink .... forasmuch as ye did it unto the least of 
these ye did it unto me' — As then He who needs no 
food is said to be nourished by the food bestowed on 
those whom he wishes to be nourished, so He re- 
joices who is incapable of change of mood, because 
the repentant sinner, whom he wishes to be happy, 
has joy in his own repentance. God then being 
good, and abundantly compassionating his creatures, 
he gave them commandments through the law and 



STROMATA, BOOK II. 75 

through the prophets, and now more specially by 
the presence of the Son, saving and pitying the 
miserable." 

C. 19. " The true Gnostic having been made in 
the image and likeness of God, imitates him as far 
as he is able, and omits nothing to increase the like- 
ness which has been bestowed upon him; being 
continent, patient, just in his life, master of his pas- 
sions, ready to impart what he has, and as far as in 
him hes, doing good both by word and deed. 'He,' 
says the Scripture, 'is greatest in the kingdom,' who 
both acts and teaches ; imitating God in a like bene- 
ficence, for the gifts of God are available for all. . . . 
To be made in the image and the likeness of God, 
therefore, does not imply any bodily likeness ; for it 
is not lawful to compare the mortal to the immortal, 
but the resemblance lies in the mind and reason ; on 
which the Lord has stamped his impress, both in the 
desire to do good, and the power to rule." 

C. 20. " Self-command too strives after the divine 
likeness, so as by patience to arrive almost at a state 
of impassibility, as may be seen in the example of 
Daniel .... and this patience the Gnostic will pos- 
sess, in so far as he is what his name imports. If he 
be troubled, he will bless God, like excellent Job 
.... if he be cast into the fire, he will not feel it : in 
word, in life, in manners, he will testify his faith ; he 
lives with God, and is his constant companion in 
spirit; pure as to the flesh, pure in heart, holy in his 
speech: the world is crucified to him, and he to the 
world ; he bears the cross of his Saviour about with 
him, following in his steps; and is become like God, 
holy among the holy." 

C. 23. "The next thing to be treated of is mar- 
riage. This institution is the first legitimate con- 
junction of the man and the woman for the purpose 



76 STROMATA, BOOK II. 

of bringing up children. We ask, then, is it ex- 
pedient to marry ? This is one of the things which 
may be characterized according to circumstances, for 
it may be well for a man to marry, as he finds cir- 
cumstances make it desirable, or for a woman to do 
the like : but it is not needful for any to marry any, 
without concern as to who or what the wife or hus- 
band may be; rather is it right that the means, and 
the character, and the circumstances which may 
render it proper or improper, and the well-being of 
children should be considered, and that there be a 
thorough likeness of taste and disposition, so that the 
love which ought to be free, shall not be a matter of 
force and necessity on the part of the wife. . . . 
Democritus objected to marriage on account of the 
trouble attending the bringing up of children, and 
other cares incident to that state. .... Others say, 
' he who is without children has not completed the 
perfection of his nature, having no successor in whom 
he is perpetuated .... altogether, therefore, marriage 
is desirable both for the benefit of our country, and 
for the succession of human beings, and for the per- 
fecting the world as far as in us lies. . . . Even our 
sickness and our wants point to marriage as their 
solace, for where is the friend whose sympathy equals 
that of a wife ? In fact the Scripture calls the wife a 
needful assistance. . . . Marriage too is a comfort as 
age advances, for then the children cherish the de- 
clining years of their parents Marriage then, 

is to be kept pure, like some spotless image in its 
temple, carefully guarded from all pollution, so that 
in the morning we may awake with the Lord, and lie 
down to sleep at night with thanksgiving, testifying 
to the Lord with our whole lives, possessing piety in 
our souls, and extending our discretion even to the 
body." 



STROMATA, BOOK III, 77 



BOOK III. 



C. 6. " There are some heretics who decry mar- 
riage altogether .... and boast themselves to be 
herein imitators of the Lord. But this is vain glory, 
and to them the Scripture speaks, saying, ' God re- 
sisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.' 
And to those who abhor marriage, the blessed Paul 
has said, 'In the latter times some will apostatize 
from the faith, listening to erring spirits . . . forbid- 
ding to marry, and abstaining from food' — and again 
he says, 'Let no one abase you into a voluntary sys- 
tem of humility, and parsimony towards the body.' — 
Many have had children living chastely in matrimony. 
Peter and Phihp both had families, and Philip, again, 
gave his daughters in marriage : and Paul himself, 
in one of his epistles, does not hesitate to speak of 
his wife, whom he did not carry about with him, on 
account of the giving a greater attention to his minis- 
try. For, he says, have I not liberty to carry about 
with me a sister, a wife, like the other apostles ? For 
they, in order to their ministry, carried with them 
their wives, not as wives, but as sisters, so that they 
might be assistants in their work, by entering into 
the women's apartments, and introducing the doctrine 
of the Lord without giving rise to any scandal. And 
we know that these female ministers are mentioned 
by the excellent Paul in his other Epistle to Timo- 
thy. . . ' The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,' 
neither is it abstinence from wine and meat, but 
it is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 

Spirit Which of the 

apostles would now imitate the austerities of the 
7 



78 STROMATA, BOOK III. 

prophets ? What true Gnostic would even follow 
the example of John in this respect ?" 

C. 7. "The continence which the Greeks teach, 
is the warring against unruly desires ; but according 
to us it is such an habitual self-command that no 
unruly desire is felt: but this self-command is only 
to be attained by the grace of God. . . . As it is better 
to be in health, than, being sick, to talk about getting 
well; — and to be in the light, than to discuss its 
powers ; so is true continence better than that which 
the philosophers teach : for where even one desire 
has seated itself, yea, though it should never be 
wrought out into bodily action, the memory is busy 
with the absent object. Upon the whole, then, the 
discussion respecting marriage, food, and other things 
of the same kind, proceeds upon this ground : that 
what is requisite shall be done, not as the result of 
desire, but as a part of the human economy: for we 
are not the children of bodily instinct, but of the 
will: and he who marries for the sake of the com- 
forts of a family, should exercise a proper continence, 
and treat his wife, whom he is bound to love, with a 

modest and virtuous respect But we are not 

to imagine that continence relates to one thing only, 
i. e., the licentiousness of unchastity ; for it has re- 
lation to all other things which are coveted by a 
luxurious soul, which, not content with what is ne- 
cessary, seeks for indulgence. Continence is the 
contempt of money : continence is the despising of 
pleasures, and possessions, and spectacles ; it is the 
ruling the mouth, and mastering what is evil, by 
means of reason. . . . But those who, through hatred 
of the flesh, avoid the commerce of matrimony, and 
the participation of proper food, are untaught and 
atheistic : such continence is folly, and resembles 
that practised by the heathens ; as the Brachmans, 



STROMATA, BOOK III. 79 

who neither touch wine nor any flesh : or those of the 
Gymnosophists who are called venerable, who wholly 
abstain from marriage. . . . The conclusion is, there- 
fore, that he does not sin who enters into marriage 
according to reason, and the Divine ordinance [xo.t:6. 
?ioyov), if he do not find the bringing up of children 
a difficulty : for many feel grieved at being child- 
less .... and many cannot bear to hve alone, and 
desire marriage on that account, and no one is to be 
blamed for doing what is pleasing to himself, in 
moderation, and temperately, therefore any one of us 
is at liberty to enter upon married life or not, as he 
thinks fit." 

C. 12. "But whatever may be the kind of life 
chosen, whether to live in single chastity, or, uniting 
in marriage, to bring up a family, it is proper to live 
wisely according to our determination, and not to 
neglect the duties arising from it .... for there are 

duties pertaining to both But some one will 

say, ' he that is single cares for the Lord, but he who 
is married thinks how he shall please his wife.' 
What then ? Is it not in his power, while pleasing 
his wife according to God's ordinance, to give thanks 
to Him ? and is it not possible for the husband and 
wife together to care for the Lord 1 And as she who 
is not married is solicitous for the things of the Lord, 
that she may be holy in body and spirit ; so also may 
the married woman be soh'citous to please both her 
husband and the Lord, in the Lord. Both are holy, 
both she who is married and she who remains 
single." 



80 STROMATA, BOOK IV. 



BOOK IV. 



The writer begins this book by a review of what 
he had already written, in which it was his object, 
he says, to show that " philosophy," such philosophy 
at least as he himself had learned and loved, " ought 
to be cultivated by all, whether slave or free, man or 
"woman." He next professes it to be his intention to 
treat of the Gnostic physiology, as he quaintly terms 
it: namely, to draw the character of a Christian 
thoroughly trained, and, as he adds, — borrowing the 
phrase from the heathen mysteries, — completely 
initiated. 

C. 3. " It is of the Gnostic that the phrase, * Thou 
hast made him a little short of the angels,' is to be 
understood : less in time that is, and inferior in the 
clothing of his spirit, but equal in immortal hfe. . . . 
As all truth is but the reflection of the truth that is 

in God, so the Gnostic loves truth and bears 

cheerfully the dissolution of the bond between soul 
and body, ' for,' says he, ' I am crucified to the world, 
and the world to me, and even whilst in the flesh, I 
have lived a citizen of heaven.' " 

C. 4. " He, therefore, who is properly termed a 
Gnostic, readily submits when the sacrifice of his 
body is called for ; not using any insulting language 
towards the magistrate who tempts him to abandon 
his faith, but, as I think, teaching, and even arguing 
with him. 

" How great the glory, and how long the joy," 

as Empedocles says, of those who leave this mortal 
life. This man has the testimony of his own heart 
that he is in Gnostic faith towards God, and shows 



STROMATA, BOOK IV. 81 

the tempter that it is vain to strive against the faith 
of love. The fear of death cannot tempt him to 
apostatize from the inward obedience which he prac- 
tises towards the teaching of his Lord, but by his 
conduct he confirms the truth of his preaching, show- 
ing forth thus the power of that God to whom he is 
hastening. Thou mayest have seen and wondered 
at his love, w4iich he thus openly shows, being united 
in grateful affection to him who once bore his nature, 
and by virtue of that honored blood viewing without 
horror even the unbehevers who seek his life.* He 
has refused to deny Christ through the fear of break- 
ing his command, and this fear is in him a witness to 
the truth. Neither will he sell his faith through the 
hope of offered gifts, but in his unbounded love to 
his Lord he quits hfe with satisfaction; grateful to 
Him who has offered him the means of his exodus 
from this world, grateful to all those who have con- 
spired against him; and have thus afforded him an 
honest occasion, though unsought, of showing himself 
as he is : to them by his patience, to the Lord by his 
love; by which indeed he was already known to 
Him, who before his birth even saw what his choice 
would be. Boldly then he comes to his friend, the 
Lord, for whom he has willingl)^ offered his body, — 
and to speak poetically — is by our Saviour received 
with the appellation of 'dear brother,' — on account 
of the simihtude of their lives. For we call mar- 
tyrdom the perfect imitation and finish; not that man 
then finishes his life, as the heathens fancy, but 
because it shows the finished work of love. . . And 
if confession of our behef in God be martyrdom! 



* This passage has necessarily been paraphrased ; the words 
literally translated would be scarcely understood. 

t A martyr is in strictness a witness in a court of law. 



82 STROMATA, BOOK IV, 

{ixaptvpva) every one possessing the knowledge of 
God, and leading a pure life in obedience to his com- 
mands, is a martyr, — i. e., a witness — in life and in 
word, whatever may be the mode in which he is set 
loose from the body ; as says the Lord in the gospel, 
' Whoever has left father and mother and brethren,' 
and all the ties consequent upon these, ' on account 
of the gospel and of my name, is blessed:' — not sig- 
nifying hereby simple martyrdom, but that perfect* 
testimony which is given by a life regulated accord- 
ing to the canon of the gospel, through love for the 
Lord. . . . We say farther, that those who throw 
themselves in the way of death, — for there are some 
who belong to us only in name, who hasten mise- 
rably to throw away their lives in hatred to their 
Creator,! — these we say destroy themselves, but are 
not martyrs, even though they should undergo a 
public punishment: for they have not preserved the 
character of witnesses to the faith ; not knowing the 
true God, but throwing away their liv^es vainly, like 
the Gymnosophists of India." 

C. 5. . . . " Some things are to be chosen, not on 
their own account, but for the sake of the body ; for 
the body requires care on account of the soul, to 
which it is related. He who would lead a gnostic 
life, therefore, must learn w^hich of these things are 
lit and proper, for that all pleasures are not good, is 
clear: since we know the fact to be, that some are 
sheerly evil . . . and thus pain is not to all an evil ; 
for on some occasions we choose, though at others we 
avoid it. The choice and the avoidance, then, are 



* yvot'trntriV. 

t The heresy of Valentinus, afterwards called the Gnostic, 
asserted that the AnjOUHpj/o? or Creator of the world was an inferior 
and evil Being, or principle. 



STROMATA, BOOK IV. . 83 

made in consequence of a sound knowledge of the 
circumstances and their consequences : and it follows 
that the science which enables us to choose wisely, 
is the main good ; not the pleasure itself, which is 
only sometimes chosen. Thus the martyr chooses 
the pleasure he obtains through hope, and sets it 
against present pain." 

C. 6. "I am of opinion too, that the gnostic life 
requires that we should not come to the saving Word 
through fear of punishment, or even through hope of 
the gifts promised in the gospel, but on account of its 
intrinsic excellence. . . . The Saviour refers all things 
to the discipline of the soul, as when he said that 
the widow who brought her all to the treasury, though 
it was trifling in amount, gave more than the rich 
who offered only of their superfluity . . . . ' Blessed are 
the meek,' says he ; that is, those who have triumphed 
in the battle carried on by unbehef in the soul, and 
have subdued anger and all the other passions which 
follow upon it,* i. e., unbelief: for the meek whom he 
praises are those who are so by choice, not by any 
necessity of nature .... 'Blessed are those that 
weep' .... but there are two kinds of repentance : 
for one kind, and this is the commonest, results from 
fear of the consequences of evil deeds: the other, 
much more valuable, originates in the horror we feel 
at seeing our souls unworthily stained with sin: but 
yet God, who is never weary of benevolence, will 
accept either . . . . ' Blessed are the compassionate' . . . 

* Modern Christians might perhaps profit by seriously reflect- 
ing that the good Clement considers anger and other transgres- 
sions consequent on indulged passion, as a consequence of 
unbelief. In fact, does a man ever pursue any course which he 
thoroughly believes will end in certain evil and suffering ? — 
Those who give way to their passions then, do not believe the 
gospel. 



84 STROMATA, BOOK IV. 

but compassion is not, as some of the philosophers take 
it, a mere grief for the sufferings of others .... for 
those indeed are compassionate who ac^ Icindly: but 
yet those also, who wish So to act, but are disabled 
from so doing by poverty, sickness, or age, are also 
to be considered as compassionate; for their will is 
the same, and it is only the means that are wanting . . . 
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God' . . . and if we consider this truly, we shall 
perceive that knowledge is the guide in the purify- 
ing of the soul, and is the giver of energy for good 
actions ; for many things are good or evil according to 

circumstances He wills therefore that those 

who come to God should be pure from unruly cor- 
poreal desires, and holy in their contemplations, so 
that nothing debasing may adhere to what should be 
the leading power in man, i. e., the soul. The 
Gnostic, therefore, accustoms himself to such con- 
templation; conversing with God in all purity, until 
he is habitually so free from passion, and so assimi- 
lated to the Deity, that he may rather be characterized 
as being himself science and knowledge, than as 
merely possessing them." Other virtues are treated 
of by Clement in the same spirit, showing that mo- 
tives rather than actions, should draw the attention of 
the Christian ; but want of space forbids the going 
through the whole. He thus concludes his character 
of the Gnostic Christian. 

C. 7. "Plato describes the just man as happy not- 
withstanding the severest torments: — the Gnostic, 
too, has fixed his aim (t-sXoj), beyond this life, in the 
being happy and blessed for ever, the regal friend of 
God. Hence dishonor, exile, proscription, or yet 
more, — death, — cannot tear from him that free and 
overpowering love towards God which bears all 



STROMATA, BOOK IV. 85 

things, and is patient under all things, because it 
'believes all things to be administered by the Divine 
prescience . . . The first grade, therefore, is that in- 
struction through fear, by means of which we abstain 
from unjust actions ; the second is, hope, by which we 
follow after what is good ; — and love completes the 
course of Gnostic instruction . . . Thus armed, the 
Gnostic exclaims, 'O Lord, give the occasion, and 
accept the manifestation of my love! Let it be 
severe, for I can despise dangers through love to- 
wards Thee.' " 

C. 8. "It is in the power of him who lives accord- 
ing to our institutions, to philosophize without letters, 
whether he be barbarian, or Greek, or slave, or old 
man, or child, or woman ; for temperance and self- 
command are duties common to all who embrace it ; 
for one and the same virtue belongs to one and the 
same nature: and there is not one human nature for 
the woman and another for the man, but it is alike in 
both; since if it belonged only to the male to be just, 
and moderate, and whatever else is consequent on 
this character,* then would the woman rightly be 
unjust and intemperate ; a thing not allowable to be 
thought, even: moderation and justice, and all the 
other virtues, therefore, are alike in the man and the 
woman, the slave and the free . . . Not that we affirm 
the female to be the same as the male, as far as sex 
goes ... for the bearing of children is the part of the 
woman, as the female ; not as man, taken generically : 



* It was made a question by Aristoteles whether women 
possessed the capability of virtue : and it was the very common 
persuasion of the heathen that their nature was inferior to that 
of the man. Clement, therefore, sets himself to combat this 
most pernicious error, and to show that the soul is of no sex, 
and that male and female are alike before God. See Gal. iii. 28. 
8 



88 STROMATA, BOOK IV. 

but in those things which belong to the soul, man is 
alike, whether male or female ; and both sexes are 
intended to arrive at the same virtue. ... As there- 
fore we consider that the man ought to be temperate, 
and above sensual pleasures; so we also hold that 
the woman should be temperate, and unsensuai . . . 
Wherefore, even against opposition and impending 
punishment from the husband or the master, both the 
slave and the woman will philosophize : for he is free 
over whom the tyrant death is powerless, and who 
cannot be deterred by the fear of worldly ills from 
the worship of God . . . and if it be good and praise- 
worthy in the man to die for the sake of virtue, of 
freedom, and of his own soul, so also is it in the 
woman; — for this is the part, not of the male sex 
merely, but of the good generally. 

C. 22. "The Gnostic is clear-sighted and intelli- 
gent, and his virtue consists in the performance of 
specific good actions, not in the mere abstinence from 
evil ones . . . nor even in the doing good ones through 
fear . . . nor for the hope of promised honor . . . The 
Gnostic does good out of love, and chooses what is 
right because it is fair in his eyes . . . and if it were 
possible that eternal salvation could be separated 
from the knowledge of God, and he had the choice 
of one or the other given him, he would choose the 
latter in preference to the former." 

C 26. "Those are not to be praised who inveigh 
against the creature, and condemn the body as bad; 
not seeing that the constitution of man is such as to 
fit him for the contemplation of heaven; that the 
very organs of sense tend towards knowledge; and 
that all his parts and limbs are fitted for the pursuit 
of what is fair and good, not of sensual pleasure. 
Hence the highly honored soul of man has been 



STROMATA, BOOK IV. 87 

chosen by God as his habitation, and he has been 
thought worthy of the Holy Spirit's sanctification, 
both of body and soul ; being perfected by the restora- 
tion* effected by the Saviour." 

* narctpTi^fAx. This word implies a restoration like that of a 
dislocated joint, which, by being replaced in its socket, moves 
again at the command of the soul. 



THE END. 



SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 



EDITED BY A 



FEW WELL-WISHERS TO KNOWLEDGE. 



No. VIIL 



AN EXPOSITION 



VULGAE AND COMMON ERKOHS 



ADAPTED TO THE 



YEAR OF GRACE MDCCCXLV. 



BY THOMAS BROWN REDIVIVUS, 

WHILOM KNT. AND M. D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA AND BLANCHARD 

1846. 



thiladelphia: 
t. k. and p. g. collins, 

PraNTEKS. 



TO THE READER. 

In ancient times it was held as a matter of faith 
by many, that man's spiritual part did not go at 
once to its ultimate state of existence, but did undergo 
a kind of purification, by the passing from one body 
to another of a better or worse kind; until, being 
thus corrected of its earthly desires and propensions, 
it was fitted for its final beatitude. Pythagoras, it 
was said by some, had good recollection of the time 
when his soul was far worse bestowed than in that 
body wherein he preached temperance and virtue 
so effectually to the citizens of Crotona, as to raise 
that city at once to greatness, and its people to a 
merited superiority over their neighbors of Sybaris : 
-—a body kept in such holiness and purity by its 
beatified inhabitant, that we may well believe it fitted 
for that resurrection of the just, where "they that 
do well shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment ; and they that turn many to righteousness, as 
the stars for ever and ever." 

Good reader, I will not ask thee to believe that 
Pythagoras hath revisited earth mider my semblance, 
albeit my wish to amend the morals, and increase 
the wise knowledge of my cotemporaries, be not 
less lively than his ; but merely to give me so far 
credit as to believe for the nonce, that the pen which 
doth now address thee, is that of Thomas Brown, 
whilom Doctor of Physic; who began his inquiry 
into vulgar and common errors some two centuries 
back, and liaving laughed somewhat at the odd blun- 
ders in science made by the men of that age, hath now, 
1* 



b TO THE READER. 

in return, somewhat to blush for his own. We are 
always wont to inquire anxiously what men of 
other lands have to say concerning us ; rightly judg- 
ing that they who have been brought up in other 
habits, will notice the strangeness or excellencies of 
ours, with a sharper observation than that of one 
born and nurtured in the country: there is, therefore, 
good reason to think that the opinions of a man of 
another age stepping onward into this, will not be 
without their value to such as can forget their own 
pre-judgments so far as to profit thereby. 

Within the last two hundred years the very face 
of the world is changed ; and he who should rise at 
once from his grave, passing through no intermediate 
stage, and look on the nineteenth century with the 
eyes of the seventeenth, would go near to expire 
again with amazement at what he saw ; and would 
despair of ever, in the short span of one life, attain- 
ing to the knowledge of all the discoveries which 
have graced these later times. But let the same 
man go into society, and he will find things far less 
changed there, than, with such a change in all else, 
there would be good cause to expect. True it is, 
that there is more of refinement in expression and 
manners : but the unthinking many have gained, on 
the whole, far less from the deep thinking few, than, 
— taking a theoretical view of the case, — might in 
fair reason have been looked for ; and the same error 
which my Lord Bacon doth so feelingly complain of 
in his time, remaineth very little corrected in this : 
namely, a " mistaking or misplacing the last or 
farthest end of knowledge ; for men," saith that 
wise writer, " have entered into a desire of learning 
and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity, 
and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their 
minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for orna- 



TO THE READER. 7 

ment and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them 
to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times 
for lucre and profession ; and seldom to give a true 
account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use 
of men; as if there were sought in knowledge a 
couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless 
spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable 
mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or 
a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; 
or a fort or commanding ground for strife and con- 
tention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and not a rich 
storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the 
relief of man's estate." — In brief, learning is sought 
as the means to an end, — and that end is too usually 
a worldly one ; not for the love of knowledge j)er 
se; nor for the elevation of the soul, by the giving 
it strength of pinion to soar above the things of earth ; 
neither if it settle down towards lower regions, doth 
it come, bird of paradise-like, radiant with the hues 
of heaven, to make us love the skies it hath left; but 
it descendeth the rather like the fuliginous particles 
of the smoke which hath soared upwards for a time, 
dark and unlovely ; with much talk of utility, but 
little of benevolent usefulness. 

Neither do I find that the great advance of science 
hath done much in the rendering paedagogy more 
facile and pleasant either unto the teacher or the 
learner : for I perceive youth to be instructed much 
in the same guise as was the practice of two centuries 
back; by the influence of fear rather than love. 
Neither, though somewhat hath been done towards 
the affording to the poor a slight taste of letters, 
hath such advance been made towards elevating 
them to that state of mental enlightenment which is 
the birthright of every human being, as becometh a 
great and wealthy state, such as England doth now 



8 TO THE READER. 

boast itself to be. Neither do I see that the state of 
woman-kind is such as becometh a period wherein 
the empire of mind over matter is so loudly pro- 
claimed. For those disabilities and obstructions of 
law which were laid upon women in semi-barbarous 
times, by reason of their lack of physical strength 
for martial exercises, remain unaltered ; and their 
education is for the most part conducted in such 
sort, as to debar them from that instruction in liberal 
science, which shall best fit them for the performance 
of their many and great duties : nay, it is not rare to 
hear such as have freed themselves from the shackles 
of idle prejudice so far as to acquire a competent 
knowledge of science, ancient and modern, rather 
flouted at, as if they had done some evil thing, than 
marked as an ensample for others. And in these 
things I judge that this age hath not made the advance 
which it claimeth to have done, in the policies of 
civil life, and consequently that it walketh lamely 
as it were, seeing that on the one leg it standeth 
high, while the other is curtailed of its just propor- 
tions. 

Nevertheless it promiseth well for this age, that of all 
the common errors which in former editions of this 
work the author took occasion to remark on, scarcely 
any one remaineth unto this present day; and I may 
surely indulge a hope that if their forefathers suffered 
themselves to be argued out of their prejudices, and 
flouted into the receiving of the truth, in so many 
instances ; the existing generation will not be less 
candid, and take in good part what haply may be 
more rudely said than is the wont of this age and 
country. Verily, if Truth have lain in the well 
ever since the time of Democritus, — and, indeed, 
before his time, for he said she was then so deep 
that it was past his power to hale her up therefrom, 



TO THE READER. \f 

-the wonder is not great if the language she speak 
be somewhat antiquated. Yet is her voice when she 
speaketh, so musical to human ears, that the words 
she useth matter not much: — to my readers, therefore, 
I leave it to consider if in these things which I have 
noted, it be the voice of Truth which speaketh or 
not : and if, indeed, they should find it to be so, then 
haply they may profit thereby, to the putting away 
of prejudice so far, that, as this my record of com- 
mon errors is of so much less bulk than the last, so 
in the next age there shall be none occasion to make 
any farther edition thereof. 



OF THE CAUSES OF COMMON ERRORS. 

To him who proposeth unto himself the correc- 
tion of some of the errors which he continually find- 
eth current in the world, an inquiry into their causes 
is a natural beginning: and, doubtless, as is set forth 
in the first editions of this work, the natural infirm- 
ity and deceptibility of human nature have their 
share therein : but less so in the present perihelion 
of science, than formerly. For I do now perceive, 
when I look deeply into the causes aforesaid, that 
much of the error now current is founded on sayings 
delivered commonly in society, which yet any one 
of that society could well correct by his own proper 
knowledge, were he so minded. I hiold its preva- 
lence, therefore, to be rather the consequence of an 
indolence that will not, than of an ignorance or 
dullness that cannot examine the grounds thereof. 

When the patterns of weights and measures were 
laid up in the sanctuary of the Hebrews, for the pre- 
vention of mistake or fraud, we find very soon that 
the cubit and the ephah grew to be so much shorter 
and less in the hands of the people, that the differ- ^ 
ence came at last to be acknowledged and registered: 
— so unwilling are men to keep up to the full mea- 
sure ordained by God : and thus it is that we, too, 
having our measure of life laid up unchangeably in 
the gospel, have come to have a worldly measure 
also, which falleth far short of it: and this is allowed 
and acknowledged — but hath God allowed it? — and 
when we go from this world with some of these cur- 
rent errors in our mouths, and measure ourselves 



12 OF THE CAUSES OF COMMON ERRORS. 

thereby, are we certain that the measure of the sanc- 
tuary will not be brought forth to falsify our bad cal- 
culation? nay, are we not sure that it will? 

Methinks, therefore, as errors of science are every 
day fading away before the greater light which seem- 
eth to be leading us on, like the lengthening days of 
May, to the summer-tide of knowledge, where there 
shall be no real darkness ; — it is of more import to 
expose the falsity of some of these current sayings, 
and to bring forth into common use the cubit and 
ephah of the sanctuary, seeing that sooner or later 
we must measure our course of life thereby ; — than 
to combat many of those mere popular errors in 
science which are only dragging on a lingering ex- 
istence, and which will expire altogether in a very 
few years without any aid of mine. And if by such 
an examination of common sayings that have thus 
far passed unquestioned, I may lead men generally 
to look a little more narrowly into their opinions on 
such matters ; and cultivate in them more rational 
and logical modes of thinking, so that fallacies shall 
not, as heretofore, pass undetected through an indolent 
fear of the trouble of inquiry, — I shall hold myself 
to have done good service to the world, and not be 
without hope that I may thereby have rendered my 
own last account somewhat more satisfactory. 

As for other errors of less concernment, some 
have arisen from witty sayings, which have come to 
be repeated for the neatness of the expression, till 
they acquired the weight of a maxim : and some 
have had their birth in too much learning ; inasmuch 
as not a few writers have treated their own language 
contemptuously, as deficient in grammatical forms ; 
and so in studying to write Latin, they have forgotten 
how to write English; and thus have fallen them- 
selves, and led others into notable errors of phrase; 



OF THE CAUSES OF COMMON ERRORS. 13 

some of which out of love to my native tongue, 
which I hold to be rich in power of expression, 
when spoken in its purity, I shall take occasion to 
notice: and doubtless, if we look narrowly into 
men's notions, Ignorance also will be found to have 
a large family of errors that call him father ; but as 
I have before said, they are a sickly brood, not 
likely in most instances to reach maturity ; for the 
which cause I am the less careful about them. 



OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE WAY OF 
COMMON SAYINGS. 

" A young man must sow his wild oats.^^ 
A BAD and profitless crop at any time, but worst 
when sown in a virgin soil ; for then do they grow 
more rampant, so as utterly to choke all the seed 
planted by the care of the Divine Husbandman. 
But to speak of this notion without a figure, — for 
methinks it is on account of its foulness that it hath 
been so veiled ; — and sometimes it is better to show 
bad things in all their ugliness, that men may eschew 
them,^ — what doth this phrase of " sowing wild oats" 
signify ? Doth it not amount to this, — that man, 
having lost his primeval innocence, shall take good 
care that he never regain it? That he doth well, if, 
after having given all the cream and richness of his 
life to. Belial, he shall haply carry the sour skim milk 
thereofto God? 

I remember once hearing one who had thus done, 
and was now grown old, lament himself, in that 
death was drawing nigh; he being then suffering 
wdth gout and other infirmities of age, come upon 
him all the sooner for the intemperance of his youth : 
to the which it was answered, that death was a happy 
deliverance from the pains of protracted age, and 
that even had his life formerly been such as he 
would now wish had been otherwise, yet that for 
many years he had had no cause for uneasiness on 
this head ; seeing that he had doubdess repented of 
the past. Methinks I see his countenance now, and 
hear the tone of his voice when he replied to those 



OF VULGAR ERRORS, ETC. 15 

well-intended consolations — " Yes, I forsook my 
sins when my sins forsook me," — and he paused as 
if fearing to strengthen by utterance the thought 
which oppressed him ; but after a moment he added, 
" how can I tell that such repentance is of any avail?" 
and then, though his age and health required rest, 
he plunged again into the dissipation of company, 
in order to get rid of uneasy remembrance, and it 
may be, of still more uneasy anticipations; and so 
he died— he had " sown his wild oats," and gathered 
the fruit. 

But say some, and they are women whom I hear 
say so, — the more sliame and the pity when they 
who should be the salt of the earth, have so far lost 
their savor as to allow it to putrefy, — " Men must 
know the world, and they will avoid vice the better 
for having tasted, and found what it is like." " Good 
madam," I would answer to such an one, " there 
have been persons who have swallowed arsenic, and 
recovered ; but did any one ever think that it was 
needful in order to the avoiding of that poison in 
future, to try how much danger and suffering at- 
tended the taking of it ? Or did he ever find his 
constitution amended thereby ?" Man's bodily frame 
is too complex in its mechanism to be disordered 
with impunity ; and it may well be a question with 
an anatomist, who knoweth the functions of the 
brain, and the extreme delicacy of that organ, whe- 
ther it ever entirely recovereth from the effects of 
this devilish apprenticeship. Neither doth the youth 
thereby gain knowledge of the world ; for, thanks 
be to Heaven ! bad as it is, it is not all bad ; and I 
think the larger portion of mankind will be. found to 
have enough of good in their compositions to pose 
a man shrewdly, who hath known only evil. A 
person may be innocent without being ignorant : he 



16 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

may know, alack ! — who can move in the world and 
not know it ? — that there is much of vice, and many 
evil men and evil things around him : but he may 
at the same time dislike and avoid such society. It 
hath been said by One whom none will gainsay, that 
"no man can serve two masters ; for either he will 
hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold 
to the one and despise the other." Men do not 
become vicious till they have learned to like vice ; 
for if they did not, it is too ugly in its features and 
frightful in its consequences to be entertained for a 
moment. What security is there then, that after 
having cherished this depraved appetite for a season, 
the order of nature will be reversed in this one in- 
stance, and that habit will not in this, as in other the 
like cases, strengthen the propension to what hath 
been oft times done, till it becometh more and more 
difficult to avoid the doing it again ? 

I should like to ask such as hold this pseudo- 
knowledge of the world so especially needful to 
man's well-being, what place in that future world 
which all profess to believe in, this science is likely 
to fit them for ? Sure I am that if our conversation 
be destined to be with just men made perfect, as in 
Sacred Writ we are told it shall be, we shall find 
this kind of knowledge strangely out of place in 
such intercourse ; and I question much if such a train- 
ing would not go far to exclude a man from all good 
society there ; as being too vulgar and ill-mannered 
a soul to be admitted among such as had been ac- 
customed to keep good company. It is a conve- 
nient doctrine that men hold, that the happiness or 
infelicity of the next world is an arbitrary reward or 
punishment, which can be bestowed at the will of 
the Judge ; whose compassion being finally moved 
by a few tears and professions of sorrow, he will 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 17 

thereupon remit the one, and bestow the other. But 
what if we should find that when the earthly mould 
is broken, the soul remaineth with all the ugly fea- 
tures there given it, settled and fixed for ever ? Will 
not this so-called knowledge of the world then re- 
main upon its front, as an unseemly wart or wen, 
quite foreign from its true beauty? 

Methinks the most careless libertine would shrink 
from the thought of remembering to all eternity, — 
even if he had no other penalty to fear, — all the 
scenes of gross vice he had witnessed, all the inno- 
cence he had undermined; all the misery he had 
been the cause of: yet if we believe in a future 
judgment, we cannot suppose that the remembrance 
of our past deeds will ever be wiped out, for we are 
to receive " the reward of the deeds done in the 
body, whether they be good or whether they be 
evil." 

But excesses of this kind are a mark of spirit, it 
is said; and some young damsel will be found to 
remark that she doth "not like an effeminate man." 
Fair lady, did you ever hear of one Jesus of Naza- 
reth ? Did any of the most famed heroes of ancient 
or modern times ever meet torture and death more 
calmly than he did? or ever bear himself before 
prejudiced and unjust judges with more noble self- 
possession and dignity? Did He want spirit? He, 
from whom the scourge of the Roman drew not a 
sigh ; He who conversed calmly on the cross ! was 
He effeminate ? His company was sought by the 
wealthy and the great, the poor carpenter's son! 
could He be wanting in elegance of manners ? Yet 
how patient, how gentle, how kind was he in all the 
relations of life ! how pure, how holy was his con- 
duct ! He, the young, the courted guest ; the idol 
of the people, who might have set the crown upon 



18 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

his brow at any moment of his career, if he would 
but have given the word ! If you have ever heard 
of this person, look once more at your man of spirit ; 
place the two characters side by side — but I will not 
insult your judgment by drawing the parallel: suf- 
fice it that Jesus of Nazareth, though " tempted in 
all things like as we are;" young, followed, fond of 
female society, and joining in all the pleasures of 
social life,— sowed no wild oats. 

" ^ good fellow, nobody^ s enemy hut Ms own.^^ 
It hath oft times been matter of wonderment to me 
how many phrases do come to be received as cur- 
rent coin in the world, which for certain were never 
lawfully stamped in the mint of either religion or 
reason : and among these brass shillings of society, 
I know none that better deserveth to be nailed to the 
counter than the one above placed ; for many an idle 
young man hath, before now, found it the last in his 
pocket, and haply hath exchanged it for a pistol 
bullet, thinking himself a gainer by the bargain. 

If man grew to a rock like a limpet, then might 
he haply be his own enemy without any great harm 
to his neighbors ; but he who liveth in society, and 
faileth to perform his part aright in the station as- 
signed to him, doth all that in him lieth to destroy 
the body politic. He who is delivered over to vice 
and drunkenness — for such, being interpreted, is the 
meaning of a good fellow who is only his own me- 
my. ,—setieth. a bad example to his dependents ; 
squandereth his fortune on unworthy objects, to the 
neglect of all tliat he might and ought to have done 
towards the relief and advance of the deserving; 
plungeth his family into difficulties : grieveth, sham- 
eth, and perhaps starveth them ; ruineth his health, 
so as to make himself a burthen to those about him ; 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 19 

and finally, after having been a bad citizen, a bad 
master, a bad husband, a bad father, sinketh into the 
grave with a soul so irrecoverably poisoned by hab- 
its of sensuality and gross earthliness, that it would 
seem rather fit to rot with its putrefying companion, 
than to enter into any region of spiritualized exist- 
ence. And this man who hath fulfilled no one duty, 
but on the contrary hath spread around him a dank 
atmosphere of sin, is called " a good fellow," merely 
because he hath done all this with an air of reckless 
gayety, which showed an utter absence of any feeling 
for the beings he was rendering miserable ! Verily 
the world's measure is wofully short of the standard 
cubit and ephah of the sanctuary. 

" We must do as others do.^^ 
So doubtless said the people before the flood, and 
the natives bf Sodoma; and from their time down- 
wards, half the evils of the world may be tracked 
to that gregarious propensity in man, which maketh 
him, like a silly sheep, leap because others leap, 
notwithstanding that he himself seeth no just cause 
for any such feat of agility. But " what will peo- 
ple say ?" exclaim the weakly minded. " Good sir, 
or madam," I would answer, " people think far less 
of your concerns than you imagine ; or even if they 
do bestow a passing notice on them, there is so little 
of unanimity among men, unless where the great 
instincts of our nature are concerned, that oft, yea, 
most times, what one party blameth, another will 
praise." True it is, that it concerneth all who would 
do good in their generation, so far to make this in- 
quiry as that they may not needlessly give ofl!'ence, 
even to the conceits and prejudices of their neigh- 
bors ; because so to do doth not only militate against 
the rule of Christian charity, but inasmuch as it may 



20 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

cause their "good to be evil spoken of," doth nota- 
bly diminish their usefulness : but to let this conside- 
ration of what others will say concerning us, be, as 
it often is, a worm at the root of good intention, a 
barrier across the path which leadeth to our goal, 
— what is it but to give idle talk more importance 
than conscience, and to set the fear of man to weigh 
against the fear of God, in the balances of this world. 
In the greatest matter that ever was enacted on 
this earth, down to the most insignificant occurrence 
of ordinary life, this unhappy question hath forced 
its way, to the manifest moral perturbation, if not 
to the actual overthrowing of the inquirer. It was 
an idle and common occurrence that the daughter of 
Herodias should dance ; and it was a no less com- 
mon occurrence that a king, being drunk, should 
make a promise whereof he foresaw not the conse- 
quences ; but it was the fear of what the lords who 
sat at meat with him would say, that made Herod 
imbrue his hands in the blood of an innocent man, 
even when his better nature started back from the 
commission of so heinous a crime. And thus much 
for a trivial occurrence where the dread of the idle 
judgment of man led to bitter consequences and deep 
guilt : but there was another and a greater occasion 
where this concernment for the ill-digested opinion 
and talk of others played a yet more notable and 
important part; for what was it that led Pontius Pi- 
late to condemn Him whom he in his heart believed 
to be guiltless, but the fear that " people would say" 
he was disloyal unto Caesar ? And to pass from the 
greater unto the less, how long ago would that evil 
custom bequeathed to us by our barbarous ancestors, 
have been rusting, with their armor, in forgetfulness, 
did not the cowardly fear of what strangers would 
say, outbalance the laws of God, and the best aifee- 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 21 

tions of our nature ; and arm the hand of the friend 
against the friend, when both, at heart, shrunk from 
the appeal to this ultima ratio of unreasoning men. 
But leaving this part of the matter, wherein this 
evil carefulness for the sweetness of the world's 
breath leadeth to crimes of a deep dye ; let us farther 
consider the ill influence which this maxim that " we 
must do as others do," exerciseth on the common 
affairs of life. A man, for instance, when he sum- 
meth up his reckonings, and asketh himself how his 
business is thriving, may perceive that he is not so 
well to do in the world as he was ; that the sources 
of his gains, without any fault of his, perhaps, are 
lessening ; and that there is no reasonable hope that 
they will again prosper him as they have heretofore 
done. What doth he then? — doth he content himself 
to spend less when he gaineth less? — to proportion 
the sum of his outgoings to that of his diminished 
incomings ? No, " what would people say ? he must 
do as others of a like rank do." — What wonder if 
ruin follow ? . . . Again ; — a man of small fortune hath 
acquaintances whose larger means may justify their 
indulging in many of the gauds and ornaments of 
life ; — the wife of such an one hath jewels ; — another 
keepeth a table, not for hospitality alone, but show ; — 
our poorer man hath hitherto been thrifty and careful, 
but an idle question maketh its way into his mind of 
" what will people think" of his frugal though hos- 
pitable board, his wife's lack of bravery in her at- 
tire, — his own plain modeof life? — Where thisnotion 
hath once settled on the mind, it is like rust, corroding 
and cankering whatever it touches : it eateth away 
his peace, and paltry as it is, hath power to destroy 
the comfort of a life ! To be rid of it he spendeth 
what he getteth not, vieth with his neighbor for a 
o 



22 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

year or two, andbecometh a beggar for the remainder 
of his days. 

Nor is this over carefuhiess for the world's opinion 
less an enemy to kindness than to thrift: many a 
deed whose object is to raise the fallen, to cheer those 
on whom the hard hearted have frowned, to speak 
peace to a troubled soul, or other such Christian act, 
hath been nipped in the bud by its selfish, blighting 
breath ; and, like other tyrannical rulers, it is not satis- 
fied with the homage of our actions only ; it must 
have that of our speech ; and leadeth to injustice in 
more, and more diverse ways, than I can here specify. 
The experience of every one will, I doubt not, fur- 
nish him with many instances hereof in lesser mat- 
ters ; as where persons really not ill natured have 
joined with the company in slanderous or unedify- 
ing talk, lest it should be thought strange, should they 
not do as others did ; and so on in other things of a 
like kind. It would be better both for ourselves and 
others, raethinks, if instead of asking "what will 
people say?" we were to ask "what will conscience 
say?" and instead of measuring our doings by those 
of others, were to seek to square them by the standard 
of the sanctuary. We might haply save ourselves 
from many crimes, and some follies, by so doing. 

" He that spareth the rod spoileth the child ^^ 
Is a sentence which, though it be that of the wise 
Solomon, is often in the mouth of many a man that 
hath not Solomon's wisdom, or he would have known 
that if the advance of knowledge be not of force to 
enable us to teach the young to love goodness, rather 
than to fear punishment, we might, for all the profit 
we have gained from learning, as well have remained 
ignorant. Truly, that is but a slavish service which 
is paid merely through fear of the rod ; and as good 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 23 

Doctor Martin Luther hath well said, " How shall 
our works please God when they come from a dis- 
inclined and unwilling heart? For to fulfil the law 
is to do the works of the law with inclination and 
affection ; and freely, without the constraint of the 
law, to lead a godly and pious life, as if there were 
no fear of punishment." — I trow that none of those 
who are so free to quote this sentence of King Solo- 
mon, would be satisfied with all Solomon's know- 
ledge, even though he spake of all plants, from the 
cedar of Lebanon, to the hyssop that hangeth on the 
wall : I hold it therefore among vulgar errors to sup- 
pose that we are to make no advance in the matter 
of education, when there is no other point wherein 
we would be satisfied to live and do as King Solomon 
did. And hereout arises much bitter fruit : for while 
parents are pleasing themselves with the thought that 
all ofi^ence is to be whipped out of the child by fu- 
ture pedagogues, and all learning whipped in ; those 
years wherein the tender shoot can best be trained, 
are wholly neglected ; and the child who haply, in 
after years, may be called on to harangue in the pul- 
pit or the senate ; — to guide a family, or it may be, 
the state ; — is left in the nursery to learn to speak 
English from rude unlettered persons, who cannot 
utter three words without transgressing against the 
commonest rules of grammar; — and to gain the first 
notions of logical reasoning from those whose argu- 
ments reach no farther than, "it is because it is;"— 
and the first ideas of duty from such as most fre- 
quently hold the bearing a fair face towards the head 
of the family, to be the only point to be aimed at ; and 
whose squabbles and ill language, unconstrained be- 
fore the baby, give its young mind the first impres- 
sions. One who spake as never man spake, said, 
" Ye do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from 



24 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

thistles" — yet what but thorns and thistles are likely 
to spring up in a nursery where the mind is left, as 
was quaintly said by some one, " a sheet of white 
paper for the devil to write upon" — whereas if parents 
would do their duty, and by keeping their children 
with them under such gentle restraint as parental 
affection would dictate, check in the bud the first in- 
dications of evil, the young memory would be stored 
with knowledge picked up from conversation, without 
the weariness of learning; the language would be 
polished, the manners refined; and the child, instead 
of coming down once a day to destroy everything he 
can lay his hands on ; to howl if in an ill, or to bellow 
if in a good humor ; would be a cheerful and pleasant 
companion; knowing when and where to indulge in 
his recreations, and when to withdraw into discreet 
silence, should graver matters require it. Nor is 
this any fine drawn picture of the imagination: for 
in this my revisitation of the world, it hath been my 
happiness to see some such families, and the felicity 
enjoyed by all the members, old and young, hath 
shown that knowledge, if rightly employed, can give 
us a better system than that of a semi-barbarous age, 
now passed away along with that law of Moses, 
which, though good for the times, was pronounced 
by the greatest of all authorities to have been given 
to the Israelites "because of the hardness of their 
hearts." 

" Children should not ask questions.''^ 
I REMEMBER oncc hearing of the fellow of a college 
at Oxford, whose training had been in the days Avhen 
university men could go deeper into a bottle of port 
than a problem of Euclid, who exclaimed against the 
evil practice of allowing children to be inquisitive. " A 
child cometh up to one, now-a-days," cried this rem- 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 25 

nant of the olden times, " and asketh me the di- 
ameter of the moon: now I don't know what is the 
diameter of the moon, and I don't like to be asked 
such questions." This old gentleman was at least 
honest, and confessed without reserve the real cause 
of his objection. If others would be as honest, I 
have little doubt that we should find the very strenu- 
ous objections made to children's inquisitiveness, 
and eagerness to search into omne scibile, to have 
its origin in a like cause ; their elders do not know 
the diameter of the moon. But meseemeth that even 
though the former generation should have been igno- 
rant of many useful things, they have not any right 
thereby engendered to choke the spring of knowledge 
for the young, even though their searching inquiries 
should disclose how little the old had drunk of it; 
and he must have been a bad parent who hath gained 
so little of the affection of his child by his kindliness, 
as to have any fear that he shall attract his mockery 
by his want of erudition. A better answer would 
such a parent give, even in that case, were he to say, 
" My child, when I was young, no one would an- 
swer my questions ; and, therefore, to my regret, I 
remained ignorant of much that I wished to know : 
but, my dear child, I will not so deal with thee ; and, 
therefore, though to this question of thine I am un- 
able to give an answer of mine own science, yet 
as happily we have in this age books that will tell 
us this, and much more, we will together seek this 
out, and then we shall both be the wiser." Nor 
need any one fear the being lightly esteemed by his 
children for this plain spoken sincerity ; for the les- 
son thus learned is made pleasant by the very circum- 
stance that it is participated in by the parent, not 
dogmatically enforced ; and the child will rather wish 
that much of his learning should be thus acquired, 



26 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

than that he should run the hazard df being rebuked 
for slowness of apprehension, by one who already 
knoweth what he hath to explain. 

Moreover this inquiring spirit which men are at 
such pains to repress, would seem to have been be- 
stowed by God for the express purpose of farthering 
man's knowledge : for the child asketh of his parent 
the cause of this and that, and if he be answered 
well and freely, he will have learned, long ere he 
come to man's estate, the current state of science ; 
and having thus a foundation whereon to advance his 
building, he may chance thereupon to place a super- 
structure which may be both useful and fair : but if 
this first instinct be checked, and the child be com- 
pelled to look on what he understandeth not, and yet 
hold no question thereupon; he will soon learn to 
glance carelessly over the things around him, so that 
" seeing he shall not see, and hearing he shall not 
understand ;" and when he cometh to years, mis- 
called of discretion, it will be well for him if they 
afford enough of it to enable him then to hold his 
tongue. 

During the first years of childhood the brain is 
tender, and impatient of much hard application ; and, 
therefore, if heavy lessons be set him to learn, a 
child soon becometh unhealthy, and finally lumpish 
and incapable : but it is at this period of the tender- 
ness of the brain, that he is most prone to ask ques- 
tions as to all that he seeth or heareth, as though he 
were exercising that organ in the same way that he 
doth his limbs, by many irregular jumps and move- 
ments which favor its healthy development. If these 
movements be restrained, the body becometh de- 
formed ; nor doth the brain suffer less by the repress- 
ing this its natural exercise; becoming ever after 
inert, and unfit for ail those higher operations of in- 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 27 

tellect, which require promptitude of thought : so that 
not only is much precious time lost afterwards, in 
gaining that rudimentary knowledge whicli might 
have been acquired viva voce without fatigue, but 
the organ itself is, by its long inactivity, rendered 
less fit for its work. Two heavy evils, whereof the 
world hath daily experience in the bad ordering of 
affairs, by reason of the lack of mental expertness 
in those who have been entrusted with the oversee- 
ing thereof: and thus a large quota of mischief aris- 
eth from the senseless vanity of parents, who are 
ashamed to acknowledge their lack of science ; or 
their inconsiderateness in giving forth commands 
which they cannot support by any just and con- 
vincing reason, for which cause they dread the word, 
" why ?" — or their indolence in not choosing to seek, 
either in their own minds or elsewhere, the means 
of satisfying the first longings of the child after true 
knowledge and justice. 

".^ boy should be manlyy 
And what doth this phrase of " being manly," in- 
tend to express ? We can understand what was 
meant by the ape-trj of the Greeks, and the virtus of 
the Romans in heathen times: for in states when 
war was the only honorable employment, — plunder 
the only riches, — and the choice was only between 
slavery, literal back-breaking slavery, and conquest; 
it is easy to conceive that personal courage was 
reckoned the virtue xat'' i^%^v. But the manliness 
of a Christian Englishman is a much more puzzling 
thing. "I like my boys to be manly," saith a fa- 
ther; and thereupon he setteth his children to fight 
one another or their companions ; not in defence of 
the oppressed: not in resistance to wrong doing 
which they can no otherwise avoid ; but upon some 



28 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

quarrel, having for its origin either ill-humor, or 
pride, or ill passion of some kind. It is manly, then, 
in the eyes of this father that his son should do, 
what, as a Christian, he is forbidden to do ! Yet 
this same parent would shudder at the thought of 
allowing him to bow to the image of a Hindoo deity, 
or of a Romish saint even. But wherein lies the 
difference ? Are we empowered to be thus curiously 
nice in the picking out which of God's positive laws 
we will obey, as though we gained an immunity for 
the neglect of the rest, by the observance of one or 
two ? If we are to call it manly to cast off the very 
sign and badge of our Christian profession, " hereby 
shall men know that ye are my disciples that ye 
love one another," — we need make small scruple to 
imitate the example of the Dutch traders to Japan 
in former times, and deny our faith when interest 
prompteth us so to do. To my mind, the sin is not 
greater in the one case than the other: for to be 
manly according to this devilish interpretation of the 
word, is — not to be a Christian man. If such is to 
be his future training, wherefore is a child mocked 
by being signed " with the sign of the cross, in token 
that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the 
faith of Christ crucified". . . . and shall " continue 
his faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end?" 
Verily the father who meaneth to have such a manly 
son, might spare himself the trouble of carrying him 
to the font. 

".^5 man is not responsible for his belief ^ 
Meseemeth that there is, in the use made of this 
saying, some deal of error, sheltering itself under an 
undeniable truth : for though man's mind be so 
framed that he cannot believe without proof, and 
therefore he remaineth free from blame, if, from 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 5541 

poverty, he be misinstructed, and thereby his faith 
be starved ; or if, from ill instruction he be supplied 
with prejudice only, and thereby his faith be poi- 
soned ; or if, from being born in a pagan country, the 
light hath not arrived to him, and therefore the seed 
of faith hath not been able to germinate ; yet if the 
lack of belief in revelation be the consequence of 
inattention, which doth not seek for proof, or of in- 
dolence, which will not be at the pains to cultivate 
the intellect enough to be able to comprehend the 
proof when given, — then is such a man assuredly 
responsible for his errors. Yea, methinks he incur- 
reth the blame of the servant in the parable who 
having a talent given him, improved it not, but 
brought it back, not even naked as he received it, 
but wrapped in a napkin of fleshly desires and con- 
ceits, which he had bestowed on it whilst it was in 
his keeping, and complained of his lord as a hard 
master, because having bestowed on his idle servant 
the means of bettering his estate, he expected him to 
have made some use thereof. 

It is a strange notion of many well intentioned 
persons, that religious knowledge doth differ from 
all other; and that it cometh by prayer only, and not 
by study. How shall the man pray who knoweth 
not, or believeth not the necessity for prayer? But 
when study hath roused his attention, then there will 
be some likelihood that, like the treasurer of Queen 
Candace, he will find out his own ignorance, and 
seek for some man to teach him ; yea, look on high 
for the instruction of that Divine Teacher who is 
ever ready to make them wise who seek for true 
wisdom. 

It hath never been my luck to know one whose 
faith bore right good fruit, who had not reasoned 
thereupon; for as St. Clement of Alexandria doth 



30 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

truly say, "faith is knowledge, and knowledge is 
faith ; God having so constituted them that they 
mutually lean on each other, by turns leading and 
being led." Nor, for this kind of reasoning, is it 
needful to have been trained in the schools of learn- 
ing ; for as the ancient fathers of the church do well 
observe, man's mind is naturally ?ioyt«;oj, i. e., rational 
or logical ; and therefore many a peasant who never 
heard of Aristoteles, doth, notwithstanding, come to 
a good logical conclusion by dint of his own deep 
thinking, aided by experience in life and right inten- 
tions. Let a man, therefore, well judge himself, ere 
he assert, as a reason for his incredulity, that we are 
not responsible for our belief: for if he have not 
exerted all the powers of his mind upon the question, 
aided by all the cultivation which his station of life 
hath put within his reach, he may find when it is 
too late for his comfort that he hath cast away that 
faith which is knowledge, and knowledge which is 
faith, to his own great detriment in all the circum- 
stances of life. For man, as he is not self-existent, 
so neither is he self-supported. He who would find 
diamonds must well know and believe that there is 
a gem within that rough outside, or he Avill pass it 
by unheeded: and he who would truly prosper in 
this present world, must sufficiently believe that 
there is good meant to him in the seeming rough- 
nesses of life, to induce him to seek for it with some 
pains, otherwise he will sit down desponding, and 
only see black stones where others are gathering 
gems. Man is not yet what he shall be, and in this 
his infancy, if he be not content to lean on the hand 
which God holdeth out to him, he will stumble amid 
the rough ground which he hath to pass over ere he 
reach his resting-place. 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 31 

^^TVomen have no concern with politics,'''' 
Is a saying which goeth current with the many, 
who, indeed, are not always the wise, as an incon- 
trovertible truth ; yet there is no opinion which I 
have heard in these days, that, to my mind, more 
savoreth of error. Politics, as I think, is a word ap- 
plied to the science of government; but in its larger 
signification it extendeth itself to the knowledge of 
the relations between different states, and the influ- 
ence which the circumstances of one may have upon 
the well-being of another, as well as to the 'acquaint- 
ance with the civil polity of our own. Now as the 
prosperity of a nation consisteth in the due attention 
on the part of its governors to all these matters; and 
as the well-being of every citizen is deeply involved 
in the prosperity of the land wherein he abideth; so 
hath it always been held that in all free states the 
rulers should be under a certain control of public 
opinion ; this opinion being, indeed, no other than 
the collective expression of the notions held by the 
majority of individual citizens. Now as the essence 
of good government is that it shall protect the weak 
against the strong, so methinks, women, instead of 
having no concern with politics, have necessarily a 
peculiar interest therein; seeing that their small phy- 
sical strength must always render them the most 
liable to oppression, either amid civil broils, or 
foreign invasion : for the which cause Plato, in his 
book of laws, would have the women of his ima- 
ginary state so trained to active, and even martial 
exercises, that should the defenders of a city be slain 
or absent, the women thereof should be able in some 
sort to protect themselves against the violence of 
their enemies. 

But I am inclined to think that the untrue conclu- 



32 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

sion expressed in the above stated saying, is drawn 
from premises no less false ; for I hear it by many 
asserted that the female is born with a weaker intel- 
lect than the male. Now, theoretically, this should 
be false : for all through animal nature, that faculty, 
whatever it be, which is peculiar to the species, is 
possessed in an equal degree by both the sexes. 
Thus, the scent of the hound, or the wiliness of the 
fox, or the imitativeness of the monkey, differeth not 
one whit, whether the animal be male or female ; and 
as reason, and a sharp discernment of the relations 
of things, is the peculiar faculty of man, so we might, 
by analogy, conclude that the female of the species 
possessed it in an equal degree : but we find a yet 
stronger argument in the anatomy of the brain, which 
is the organ whereby rational conclusions are shaped 
and elaborated : for here is no defect, but the con- 
trary ; for in regard to the proportion that the brain 
beareth to the body, the female is no ways behind 
the male, but rather exceedeth in the quantity there- 
of; neither is there any organ or part wanting therein, 
of those which the male brain doth possess. With 
regard to the use made thereof, I have already re- 
marked that the education afforded to the female sex 
is not generally of such a nature, as, considering the 
advance of science, was to be expected: and yet 
despite of these disadvantages, there have been ex- 
amples enough in almost every science, and espe- 
cially in that most uninviting and severe one of the 
mathematics, to show that there is no lack of power, 
were it duly cultivated. Therefore I hold that this 
opinion of the intellectual incapacity of the female 
sex, must be ranked with those presumed truths 
which it is to be hoped that the enlightenment of the 
9ge will soon place among declared errors ; and that 
citizens of the state who have property and lives to 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 83 

lose, will no longer be told that they have no con- 
cern in the policy which may bring both into jeo- 
pardyv I have heard much of "feminine accom- 
plishments," and " feminine virtues," as if the two 
sexes were of entirely different species, and had no 
concerns in common ; but I must freely confess, 
however strange it may seem to those who are freer 
in the use of this phrase than they are haply clear 
in the understanding of it, that I never yet could 
discover which they be. For should we term paint- 
ing or music such accomplishments, there are abund- 
ance of the male sex as well as the female, who 
excel in them, and therefore they do not of nature 
belong to either ; and for the so called "feminine vir- 
tues," if any will tell me of a virtue which becometh 
a woman, that doth not also become a man, I shall 
be wiser thereafter than the Gospel hath made me. 

" Marriage is a lottery,''^ 
To them that choose to make it so ; for if a farmer 
going to a market where samples of corn or beeves 
are exposed for sale, shall determinately shut his 
eyes, and purchase the one upon which some chance 
shall cause him to lay his hand, I know no law to 
prevent it ; save that, if it were often done, his next 
of kin might perchance sue for a writ de lunatico 
inquirendo: but since marriage is, for the most part, 
done once for all, the individual can, if he will, 
make this kind of lottery of it: for however great 
the folly, it would want that succession of proof 
which would enable the chancellor to allow relations 
to interfere in the way of restraint. How the say- 
ing arose, I am at a loss to tell, unless it were in 
those times when parents selected husbands for their 
daughters, and wives for their sons, in their nonage: 
it might then be held a lottery what the infant thus 



34 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

betrothed might prove to be when grown to maturity : 
and perchance, as sayings last long after the circum- 
stances which gave rise to them, this, which was a 
true condemnation of a bad practice in its first use, 
hath now grown into a proverbial justification of a 
practice equally bad : for to take him or her who is 
to be the companion of our future life, by mere chance, 
and without inquiry, bringeth us bacl^ to those times 
whereof this saying was the approach. Yet we do 
not see that a servant who may at any time be dis- 
charged at a month's notice, and trouble us no far- 
ther, is received into our houses without a strict 
inquiry into former conduct, ability, and disposition : 
a strange instance of prudence in the lesser matter, 
coupled with carelessness in the greater. And though 
something might be said in excuse on the part of the 
man, inasmuch as the law of this realm of England, 
as I have before noted, giveth him a kind of master- 
ship over his wife which savoureth of that law of the 
strongest which barbarous times do affect, and thus 
he may think her temper and conduct of the less 
import, — what is the woman thinking of when she 
taketh to herself a master whose character she hath 
not sought to ascertain ! Is she ignorant that, by 
the sanction of this same law of England, he can 
imprison her in any room in his house, so long as he 
himself is an inhabitant thereof; — that he may strike 
her, so long as he inflicteth no severe bodily injury; 
that he may leave her and live in adultery with an- 
other, but if, when thus abandoned she can earn 
money to support herself, or come into an inheritance 
from her family, he can claim and take it from her, 
for the use of himself and his paramour ? Knoweth 
she not this ? and if she do, what term shall we find 
for the folly of her who maketh it a lottery whether 
all this may not be her lot ? — I speak not here of the 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 35 

law which surely hath strange and ugly features for 
an age that boasteth itself as a polished one ; but I 
do say that whilst the law is such as to make mar- 
riage a legal slavery for the woman, lightened only 
of its burdensomeness by the temper and just feel- 
ings of a good man, who would abhor to use the 
wicked privileges thus allowed him ; it behoveth her, 
ere she so bind herself, to know thoroughly the habits 
and prmciples of him whom she trusteth with such 
large authority over her. A Christian in principle 
would not avail himself of such a law; as indeed he 
blusheth now to see it recorded among those of his 
country: but the world's code of honor affordeth 
no security against it, as daily experience too sadly 
showeth. Let every woman then beware, and take 
heed that her future peace be not thrown away in 
this "lottery:" and let every man beware also, lest 
with all these privileges of law, he should find that 
a bad woman can make them all of none avail, and 
bring him to confess that he had better have looked 
ere he made that headlong leap, led thereto by a fair 
face hiding an evil heart. 

" Fou cannot put an old head 07i young shoidders.''^ 
If in the saying which standeth above, it be only 
intended to be affirmed that we cannot expect to 
gather the blossom and pluck the fruit of the same 
tree at the same season, or in other phrase, to find 
in a youth who hath not yet numbered twenty years, 
the experience of one of twice or thrice that age ; it 
may be reckoned among those self-evident proposi- 
tions which persons might well spare themselves the 
trouble of putting forth or iterating, and can as little 
be gainsaid, as that gray hairs are more to be looked 
for on the head of an old man than on that of a 
youth. But if more than this be supposed to be 



36 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

contained by implication in the saw I have mention- 
ed, methinks it is not only dubious, but capable of 
large error. The wise Lord Bacon hath said that 
" a man that is young in years may be old in hours, 
if he have lost no time ; but," he addeth, — alack that 
the world should have profited so little by his wis- 
dom! — "that happeneth rarely." Now that it is 
good that the young should be merry and happy, it 
must be a sorry cynic that would deny; but that 
mirth and joy may be all the better for having wis- 
dom, goodness, and learning, in their company, must 
be admitted by all : and if the training of the young 
be such as shall lead them to seek and delight in 
such things, they will indeed be less giddy and per- 
turbed on all occasions, but not a whit the less 
happy. 

Should it be a question how this saying hath be- 
come current in the world, it may be considered 
that it is a very facile and convenient mode of shift- 
ing the burden from our own shoulders to those of 
dame Nature : yet is she not blameworthy in this 
matter, for she hath given abundance of brains to 
the young, and if they be not taught to use them, it 
is not her fault, but the parents'. 

We have examples enough of the early putting 
forth of such buds of wisdom as have matured into 
goodly fruit, to prove that such things may be : but 
if ye shall be at the pains of inquiring whether the 
present fashion of indoctrinating youth, as well boys 
as maidens, be of a kind to supply by thought and 
cogitation what is lacking in experience, ye shall 
surely find that there is some main error at the bot- 
tom of the present plan of education; since the best 
fruits of it are wanting. Yet is there not any lack 
of power in the brain, for ye shall oft times see a 
lad of sixteen or seventeen years of age, possessed 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 37 

of many acquirements not to be gained without hard 
study. Such an one will be well grounded in Greek, 
Latin, and the mathematics, and these are not to be 
learned without some thought; but this glorious 
faculty whereby man doth so rise above the brutes, 
is for the most part left uncultivated, or only called 
into action by the dread of the pedagogue : — the 
memory indeed, is disciplined, but the reason left 
untrained. For proof hereof ye have but to look at 
the course of a young man's life: at school first, 
then at the university, and lastly under the especial 
training for his profession or trade be it what it may, 
wherein the fashion of empirical teaching doth so 
generally prevail, that ye shall rarely find a tutor or 
instructor of youth anywhere, who is either able or 
willing to answer those questions on the foundations 
of science, of law, or of commerce, which suggest 
themselves to an ingenuous mind ; and thus all teach- 
ing resolveth itself into a set of dogmatic rules for 
particular cases, rather, than broad principles, whereon 
the tyro may ground general conclusions, such as 
may guide him on other occasions than the one in 
question. 

And if this be true as regardeth youth of the male 
sex, how much more biting an evil is it as regardeth 
the female : for the teachers themselves, being for 
the most part ill and insufficiently instructed, dare 
not step beyond the mere setting of lessons to be 
learned by rote ; from which so little of wisdom is 
to be gained, that ye shall frequently find the old 
shoulders surmounted by a very childish head, as 
far as regardeth the brain furniture, however it may 
externally bear the signs of age. 

Many are the complaints made in this age, of the 
neglect of education ; and truly I do hold them to be 
well founded : but 1 do also note that what is called 
4 



38 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

education, though it may raise the recipients thereof 
above the depths of brutal ignorance, is far off from 
a training to wisdom. A young maiden is kept in 
the nursery and the school-room, like a ship on the 
stocks, whilst she is furbished with abundance of 
showy accomplishments, and is launched like the 
ship, looking taught and trim, but empty of every- 
thing that can make her useful. What captain 
would undertake to go a voyage in such a vessel ? 
He would naturally say, I must have store of all 
that is needful to meet the storms of winter, the 
attacks of enemies, the wear and tear of the voyage. 
And wherein is the maiden better qualified to meet 
the rubs and storms of life ? What store of know- 
ledge hath she to enable her to meet the wintry 
period of life cheerfully ? What mental firmness to 
withstand the enemies of her virtue ? What good 
common sense to meet the wear and tear of every- 
day life ? — She is a doll to be played with, not a 
companion to cheer, or a wise friend to guide, 
or to help in the buffetings of ill-fortune. Yet 
if we will mark those persons of both sexes, who, 
—by circumstances, which, though deemed unto- 
ward, were God's schooling for the mind, — have 
had all the powers of thinking and acting early 
called forth; we shall see that they have proved 
themselves equal to the demands made upon them. 
Now if wise and gentle training were, during early 
life, made to perform the part of hard necessity, the 
same good effect might be secured without the pain 
and harass ; and children might be accustomed to 
employ their reason on the ordinary business of 
life, without foregoing any branch of useful learning, 
or losing any of those refreshments and delights 
which the great Creator hath provided for the young 
and innocent. For a better system of teaching, 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 39 

where the reason rather than the memory should be 
taxed, would make learning less the drudgery of one 
who fears punishment, than the pleasant occupation 
of the intellect; and thus would it both occupy less 
time, and be far more useful for the affairs of life ; 
where we never find that set rules will serve us for 
every variety of circumstance, but where general 
principles are needed for guidance on fresh occa- 
sions and must thus be applied pro re nata^ as we 
are wont to say in our prescriptions. Were such 
training given to the young, I think the saying I 
have commented on, would not be so general: for it 
would then be seen that a wise and experienced 
head can be placed on young shoulders ; and that 
nothing is needful thereto but the careful and early 
use of the faculties God hath given. 

"^e sutor ultra crepiclam.^^^^ 
Albeit this saying be ancient, it is not without its 
harm in modern times also ; for it is a cruelty to 
attempt to bound the expansion of the human intel- 
lect because the law of nature may have required 
the labor of the hand to minister to the maintenance 
of the body : and to scoff at the endeavor to rise 
above the mire of daily toil, and soar in the em- 
pyrean of spiritual enjoyments for a short space, 
showeth a small share of the brotherly feeling which 
should exist among the followers of Christ. More- 
over the maxim, if attended to, would be hurtful to 
mankind generally; for many of our most useful 
discoveries, and much that doth most delectate our 
imagination, have been the work of persons who 
would never have benefited or delighted their cotem- 
poraries and posterity, had they thereby been deterred 

* Let not the shoemaker go beyond his last. 



40 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

from engaging in pursuits very little germane to their 
worldly calling. The lawyer would never have 
written poetry, nor the priest invented machinery: 
yea Friar Bacon would have left us without gunpow- 
der, which, albeit it hath its evils, yet hath served 
man much more effectually than it hath injured : 
and even in times nearer to the period wherein that 
saying had its rise, Cicero himself would never have 
left us that rich legacy of pure morality and wise 
philosophy, had he confined himself to Ms last ; 
videlicet, the labors of the forum ; nor earlier yet, 
would Socrates have become the listener to Anaxa- 
goras while he was yet engaged with the chisel in 
his father's shop, had he had any such notion. 
Nay, he who first spake it showed more of the spite 
of mortified vanity, than the sense of a wise man ; 
for though a shoemaker's business be with the foot 
only, yet if he had made any use of his eyes he 
could not fail to be cognizant of other parts of the 
body also, in a country and time when men were 
so little chary of their skin, that there was scarcely 
any part thereof that did not daily see the sun. It 
hardly deserved, therefore, the long currency it hath 
had. 

".^ little learning is a dangerous thing.^^ 
I KNOW not whether when Mr. Pope wrote these 
words, he had himself felt that his small knowledge 
of Greek had betrayed him into some inaccuracies 
in his translation of Homer, and therefore he was 
in anger with his own "little learning;" but this I 
do know, that the lines have been quoted largely to 
countenance an indolence that human nature is 
already too prone to, without the further aid of a 
popular poet. For in good sooth, he that never 
beginneth can never end ; and he who would have 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 41 

much learning, must begin his labors with a little ; 
therefore I do hold this to be one of those fallacies 
whicli throw an obstacle in the way of improvement, 
and therefore ought to be removed from the path. 

Science duly followed up doth elevate man to his 
greatest perfection ; but even a small tincture thereof 
is not unuseful, for thereby is the mind rescued from 
that utter brutishness which leave th it the mere tool 
of sensual and animal desires ; and he who seeketh 
learning because he would not leave unused any of 
God's good gifts, will be in no danger of drawing 
therefrom any of that idle vanity which hath no 
part in the character of a good Christian. Every 
approach, however distant, to the enjoyment and 
appreciation of spiritual pleasures, — and of this class 
are learning and science, — is an approach also to- 
wards a capability of that immortality of spiritual 
happiness which is promised us, and they who dis- 
courage such attempts in those large classes of man- 
kind who are necessitated to live by their daily toil, 
do ill service to God, by arresting his creatures in 
their progress towards the fulfilment of their great 
end and aim. Why should not the humblest begin 
in this life the course of instruction which hereafter 
is to receive its completion, in " knowing even as we 
are known?" 

" / will retire from business, and prepare for 
another world. ^' 
Who is there who hath not heard some honest, pains- 
taking man uttering some such saying as this, when 
old age is coming on? Yet well meant as this may 
be, and plausible as it soundeth to the unthinking, I 
know no greater, though alack no more common 
error than this notion, that the common engagements 
of this world are a hinderance to our preparation for 



43 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

the next; for I do surely believe, and think I have 
the warrant of Scripture and reason therefor, that we 
were sent into this probationary state to the end that 
our souls might learn experience among the diverse 
circumstances of active life, so as to know good from 
evil, and never to hazard the falling from glory when 
once attained, by any such mistake as was committed 
by those spirits that kept not their first estate. But 
if we retire from temptation, we deny ourselves the 
schooling which God appointed for our better teach- 
ing, and so far from avoiding the temptation to evil, 
we increase it tenfold. For there is no such good 
friend to virtue as that useful weariness which leaveth 
no time for a selfish cogitation over the means of 
gratifying the animal nature: yea, he who, in his 
daily charge, be it what it may, hath been just and 
true, hath taken no undue advantage, nor oppressed 
any, if rich ; — who hath served truly, and in no way 
defrauded his employers, either by negligence or 
dishonesty, if poor ; — and who hath lived in Christian 
love and amity with all his fellow men, whether con- 
nected with him by blood or otherwise ; hath pre- 
pared well for another world, albeit his prayers may 
have been short, and his time actively employed, 
even to his dying day. 

It is not for our "much speaking" that we shall 
be heard; and the brief but earnest aspiration of the 
heart towards God, which a wise and good man doth 
use to sanctify the business of the day withal, while 
pursuing the avocations of this world, hath in it 
more of the vitality of religion than the dawdling 
meditations of one who maketh prayer the object of 
his life, rather than the means of leading that life 
aright. We pray for aid to perform our duties ; but 
to use many prayers, and perform few duties, is but 
a mockery and a folly : for man thus disguiselh to 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 43 

his own conscience his cowardice and indolence, and 
fancieth that he is pious and virtuous, whilst in truth 
he is only idle and useless. Doubtless there is a 
time when increasing infirmity may make a man 
shrink from the fatigue of business which affordeth 
no respite from toil : but then this greater quietude is 
but a concession necessarily made to the needs of 
the body, and is not at all to be considered as the 
means of improving the health of the soul: on the 
contrary, we have all seen and known, that it must 
be a strong and well disciplined mind which can re- 
sist the natural propension towards the vices which 
arise out of this state of inaction; such as peevish- 
ness, selfishness, and consequent carelessness of the 
comfort and happiness of others. 

When we entertain any doubt as to the soundness 
of our opinions, there is nothing which doth so 
strengthen and clear our apprehension, as the recur- 
ring to what Lord Bacon doth well term the great 
book of God's works. Now we know that when 
Adam fell from his first estate, God imposed on him 
a law, which experience showeth to be still the law 
of human nature, that "in the sweat of his brow he 
should eat bread." No man can propound to him- 
self that the loving Father of all his works would 
either inflict a punishment for vengeance rather than 
for amendment on the first ofiender, or replenish the 
surface of this globe with beings disqualified, by the 
very law of their existence, from the pursuit and 
attainment of their ultimate good : we may, therefore, 
reasonably conclude that the toil imposed on man 
was intended to be the strengthener and safeguard of 
his virtue, and to guide his frailty in the true path to 
life eternal. We see it to be the appointment of 
God, — for what he sufiereth is so far his appoint- 
ment, that he might prevent it, and doth not: — I say 



44 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

we see it to be the appointment of God that millions 
must go forth to their daily toil, if they mean to eat 
their daily food ; nay, the very necessity for food, 
which is the cause of this labor, is especially created 
by God. Then if such be the order written in the 
book of His works, we must, unless we are deter- 
mined to shut our eyes, and not read therein, conclude 
that retirement and inaction are not the circumstances 
best fitted for the development of the spiritual life 
within: which doth indeed rather thrive and flourish 
upon the fulfilled duty of each day ; even if it were 
no more than the conscientiously doing an honest 
day's work, for the allotted day's pay, whether seen 
or not : and in like manner, vice pineth and dieth in 
the mind, when quiet sleep, the result of labor, filleth 
the hoars which are not given either to active employ ; 
or to the exercise of those kindly social afl'ections, 
which so readily twine about the heart, when the 
space for their enjoyment is short, and the zest of 
their enjoyment is not dulled by satiety. 

Instead therefore of seeking a discharge from all 
duty, as the means of improving the soul, whose true 
life is the fulfilment of duty, we should endeavor 
rather, as age approaches, to cut out for ourselves 
occupation sufiicient for the diminished powers of 
the body, such as shall give room for the exercise of 
that concern for others, and carelessness of self, 
which form the best grace of youth, and which may 
still hover, like a bright halo round the head of age, 
making gray hairs lovely, and giving earnest, even in 
this life, of what will be the society of "just men 
made perfect," in the next. 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 45 



" The poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
Jls when a giant dies.^^ 

SHAKSPEARE. 

The poet hath sometimes a knowledge that may as- 
tound us of many things which, pertaining as they do, 
to human nature generally, he hath, as it were, with 
him in his closet, they being in his own spirit : but 
of those things which are external to him ,he cannot 
have farther cognizance than others of his age and 
country ; and, regarding those, he doth only repeat, 
and thereby perpetuate, the fashion of his own times. 
And herein I note an error, inasmuch as his words 
ofttimes gain undue weight in those latter cases from 
his acknowledged skill in the first. For it doth in 
no way derogate from his marvelous powers, to say 
that such fashion of the time may be ill grounded, 
so far as regardeth science, since the business of the 
poet is to delectate the imagination, and mend the 
heart, by his lively pictures of human nature; not 
to become a teacher of natural history or philosophy ; 
therefore if, in noting popular errors, I note also a 
mistake of the above quoted most honored writer, I 
hold myself in no way disrespectful to his memory. 
Now I would commend to notice that though the 
fins offish, in regard to the arrangement of the bones, 
be typical of the human hand, no one will affirm 
them to be capable of executing the office whereto 
our hands are appointed : yet it would be expecting 
nearly such a miracle as the exercise of manual 
dexterity by a fish, were we to attribute the like 
power of feeling to a beetle, whose nerves are de- 
pendent on many separate ganglia, as belongeth to a 
being in whose large brain all the sensations con- 
veyed by the spinal cord from the delicately sensitive 
5 



46 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

skin, are concentrated, and held up, as it were, for 
reason to take cognizance of, and relieve them when 
painful. Reasoning from analogy, we cannot either 
assert or credit this, for in the human body the action 
of the viscera is for the most part confided to the 
regulation of such a set of ganglia and their depend- 
ent nerves, connected but slightly with the brain ; 
and no one needeth to be told that these actions do 
proceed with so little of consciousness on our part, 
that a man shall hardly know if his heart beateth or 
his stomach digesteth, save when disease interrupteth 
these functions : the natural conclusion herein would 
therefore be, even if direct experiment had not 
confirmed it, that a system of ganglia of this kind 
ministereth little, if at all, to sensation. And fur- 
thermore, doth the beetle need human keenness? 
Is it the wont of the Almighty to bestow powers 
which can never be exercised? What purpose doth 
sensitiveness to pain serve, if not that of a faithful 
and ever ready monitor to make us vigilant against 
such accidents and circumstances as were formerly 
the occasion thereof? And to what shall it profit a 
worm beneath the sod that it should have power to 
feel, and a smarting reason to dread those haps and 
chances, against which it hath neither wit to devise, 
nor skill to execute defences? Such a boon surely 
were a gift more worthy of a demon than of the 
God whose name is love. And should any object 
to this scientific truth, that it may breed cruelty to 
God's creatures ; I answer that they are his crea- 
tures; and, therefore, that while he who loveth 
cruelty would not be restrained, even if the beetle 
had a human frame; he that loveth God will respect 
even the smallest impress of his hand. Nor is our 
estimate of the greatness and goodness of the Creator 
hereby lessened, but rather increased ; inasmuch as 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 47 

where he hath not given means of escape, he hath 
not given acute sensibility to suffering. Let no 
man then call this an imperfection in his work; for 
in our humble way, even if a man excel in fashion- 
ing the most exactly mechanical chronometer, who 
shall think it scorn if he make also a mousetrap? 
On the contrary, doth he not rather, in that he can 
well make a trap for humble service, and a clock 
for time, to the guidance of the mariner in safety 
through long voyages, distantly image Him who 
hath placed the fish in the sea for its humble satis- 
faction, and man on the earth to prepare for eternity. 
Our God bestoweth no powers that cannot work for 
good; — life, and consequently its preservation, is of 
value to man, inasmuch as it is the shell of the nut 
laid up for immortality, which shall hardly gain its 
full proportions if the shell be destroyed : to the ani- 
mal of lower grade, life deprived of sensual gratifi- 
cation would be a punishment; they are, therefore, 
suffered to become the prey of other animals ere 
they suffer decrepitude, and their nervous system 
is such as maketh their doom no evil. 

" It is only a white lie.^' 
There is nothing more harmful to virtue than the 
habit of dwelling always on the confines of vice ; 
for as Ve find the borderers in all countries do speak 
a sort of bastard tongue, which savoreth of both the 
neighboring languages ; so he who liveth always in 
the vicinage of evil, will hardly keep his good pure 
and unmixed. I have, therefore, many times won- 
dered how the phrase of "white lies" came into 
so common usage ; for, if I mistake not, falsehood 
hath so much of the iEthiop about it, that no soap 
will wash it white. Nay, even its progeny at three 
or four removes, will still retain an ugly mulatto tinge. 



48 OF VULGAR ERRORS IN THE 

" It is only a white lie," saith one, " it harmeth 
no one." But of such an one I would ask, harmeth 
it not thyself? w^ill thy memory be as strong if it be 
never exercised in accuracy of recollection, as it 
will be where the anxiety never to transgress the 
exact truth, causeth a close attention to all circum- 
stances, which are afterwards to be related as they 
happened, rather than embellished with imaginary 
adjuncts ? Furthermore, doth any one ever tell a direct 
falsehood for the first time without embarrassment 
and blushes? and is not this the safeguard which 
God himself hath appointed to our virtue, so that 
the first step in evil being so .painful, w^e shall have 
no inclination to make a second. Is it no harm to 
thee if by habit thou lose thy sensibility to this voice 
of the good Spirit of God, which is sent to guide 
thee in the right road to heaven? Nay, even as 
regardeth our worldly convenience, it is rare if he 
who is known to tell " white lies" with so little of 
inward concern as to reveal no trace of it in his face, 
shall gain credit for his serious words. Confidence 
between man and man is thus shaken, and that most 
sweet consciousness of having striven to assimilate 
ourselves to God in the most essential attribute of 
his being, is altogether lost. 

It is said of the philosopher Xenocrates, that when 
an oath was proffered to him, previous to gi'^ing his 
testimony in a court of justice, the Athenians with 
one voice cried out, that it was an insult to demand 
an oath from a man who never in his life had uttered 
a falsehood ; and he was not allowed to be sworn. 
Now it is to be noted of this philosopher, that when 
he was sent on an embassy to King Philip of Mace- 
don, that astute monarch, after his departure, declared, 
that Xenocrates was the only one of the Athenian 



WAY OF COMMON SAYINGS. 49 

chiefs whom he had been unable to bribe. Such 
near friends are truth and honesty. 

And what is the object of these "white lies?" 
Vanity it may be, that men may say we tell a good 
story ; or it may be that we seek to entertain the com- 
pany by telling with a grave face to a friend some 
untruth, which if he believe, he shall thereby become 
an object of ridicule. But is this to be deemed an 
exact squaring of our actions by the golden rule of 
— " Do unto others as ye would they should do unto 
you?" For, methinks, few do readily abide the 
being flouted and jeered at themselves, however 
well inclined they may be to jeer at others. And 
here, again, the loss doth in the end redound to our- 
selves ; as indeed it doth whensoever we break any 
law of God : for many a man hath lost a friend who 
would otherwise have been a true and a good one, 
by unseasonable jesting of this kind. And indeed I 
hold it generally to be a vulgar error, deserving of 
reprobation, to fancy that God's laws are inscrutable, 
and hard to practise as regardeth this world ; for I 
know no precise law of the Gospel which hath not a 
direct view to our well-being in this present world, 
insomuch that the very politeness which is enforced 
in society as requisite to the comfort and decorum 
thereof, is nothing more than a feeble copy of the 
Christian graces which Saint Paul hath enumerated 
in the thirteenth chapter of his first Epistle to the 
Corinthians. Without some truth we know well 
that society could not go on, and it is an ill clever- 
ness which striveth to weigh how small a portion of 
it may serve worldly purposes ; for the soul in the 
meantime is abridged of its proper food, and pineth 
and wasteth away in a hopeless atrophy. 



OF GENIUS. 

Among the many errors common in the world, 
there is no one more common, or more hurtful, than 
the vulgar opinion respecting genius : namely, that 
it is an especial gift from heaven, whereby men be- 
come accomplished in science or art, without any 
sweat of their own brow ; a happiness which hath 
befallen no man, I think, since Adam : and yet we 
may daily hear persons excuse themselves from 
pursuing this or that study, because " they have no 
genius for it" — a manifest self-deception; since ex- 
cepting in the instance of music, wherein the fine- 
ness of the organ supersedeth some of the rudiment- 
ary part of learning, and a child shall thus be found 
sometimes to accomplish at once, what to others 
would cost a longer application, I know of nothing 
that is to be gained without labour. Nay, even 
among these early prodigies, though for children 
their skill be marvelous, yet if this precocious dis- 
play of talent be not followed up by farther teaching 
and exercitations, maturer years will disappoint the 
early promise : and yet in this case the tools are in 
a measure ready made, and their use familiar; for 
the voice can execute, without schooling, much of 
what the ear demandeth. But in other things it is 
not so — the painter must learn the art of mixing and 
laying on of colors by a deep study of the nature of 
the materials, and a long experience of their effect ; 
their " behavior" under particular circumstances, as 
it may be an experimental chemist would shape his 
phrase. The sculptor, however great his concep- 



OF GENIUS. 51 

tions, must learn to temper and mould the clay of 
his model, and to use the chisel skillfully: and if 
artists had disdained this patient toil, and trusted to 
their heaven-born genius, the world would never 
have been delectated by the sight of their works ; 
which yet we shall hear men term efforts of such 
sublime genius that no one who is not so gifted can 
ever hope to rival them. Could one of these supine 
admirers of excellence ask these men how they 
arrived at such a point of perfection, both in their 
conception and execution, he would hear of days 
and nights devoted to unremitting toil with a per- 
severance which nothing could daunt: and will 
discover at last, that this envied gift of genius is 
nothing else than a mind cultivated with an industry 
which others shrink from, through their laziness of 
intellect. The proper answer to a person who 
should thus laud an artist's genius at the expense of 
his diligence, exclaiming, " / should never accam- 
plish this if I were to work for my whole life," — 
would be, " Work as I have done for two years 
only, and see what will come thereof." — But thou 
shalt find that thy admirer of genius will never con- 
sent to an application as severe as the so called gift- 
ed individual imposethon himself: but will go away 
repeating his parrot-like words, in the hope of satis- 
fying himself in his supinity, and persuading both 
himself and others, that his idleness is no sin ; and 
so he will fancy that he hath established an axiom, 
when he hath only delivered himself of a declaration 
that he is too indolent ever to excel. 

Nor is this true in regard to art alone ; for the 
mathematician, however powerful his mind, must 
submit to long and wearisome calculations : the che- 
mist, the natural philosopher, the anatomist, must 
trace the course of nature with patient toil, ere they 



53 OF GENIUS. 

attain to any of those discoveries which, when made, 
are hailed by the world as the offspring of an almost 
divine intellect. Kepler was contented to devote 
two and twenty years to his calculations, ere he was 
enabled to publish those true views of science which 
have made his name immortal. Never did any coin 
come fresher, and sharper stamped, from the very 
mint of genius : for those views overturned all the 
time-honored notions of circular movements among 
the heavenly bodies, and introduced that new prin- 
ciple of the ellipse, which has led to all that master- 
ship of astronomical science that later observers 
have attained to. But had he suffered his indolence 
to have whispered to him during the failures and 
difficulties of that long period, — "It is useless to 
pursue this, which I have evidently no genius for; 
eight or ten years have been wasted in trying to ad- 
vance, and 1 have made no progress," — the world 
would have lost one of the brightest names in the 
list of its great men ; and mariners might still have 
been exposed to those fearful dangers of the sea, 
which his discoveries in science have now taught 
men so far to master. But Kepler had confidence 
in human nature, and he persevered. 

Doubtless it is the man who feeleth most deeply 
the nobleness of the gift of reason which God hath 
bestowed upon him, who will address him.self the 
most diligently to the work of making it available 
" for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's 
estate," — and this, as I believe, is the true secret of 
genius. He trusteth to his Lord that the talent en- 
trusted to him will bring rich interest, if it be duly 
used, and he doth so use it; for in this trade there 
is no fear of bankruptcy. Wrapped in the napkin, 
it doth but tarnish, and cometh back to the hands of 



OF GENIUS. 53 

his Lord the worse for its want of wear. Let him, 
then, who would have genius, wrestle for it as the 
patriarch Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord, 
and though the night-long struggle may leave his 
body the weaker, his point will have been gained. 




OF SOME ERRORS RESPECTING THE 
NATURE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 

Whilst treating of vulgar and frequent errors 
in men's notions of things, methinks those which are 
so generally current respecting evil spirits, deserve 
specially to be examined; for not only be there 
many falsehoods thus received as truths, but these 
falsehoods do minister as it were, and pander to 
the ill dispositions of men ; and furnish an excuse 
wherewith to salve a wounded conscience, without 
applying the sharp caustic of a true and fruit- 
bearing repentance. And truly the common and 
vulgar notion of the Evil One doth so much trench 
upon the attributes of God, that when we have, ac- 
cording to the adage, "given the devil his due," — 
such as the vulgar apprehension of the great mass 
of the people doth make it, I know not what dis- 
tinction we leave for the Deity. For the common 
notion is, that the devil doth tempt us to evil by sug- 
gestions whereof we have no note but the feeling 
such or such thoughts or desires ; and of the mil- 
lions which are now living on the face of the earth, 
almost every one at this moment that I am writing, 
will be sensible of something within or without him 
that warreth against perfection. " It is the devil — 
the tempter," — saith the unreasoning believer : but 
is he then omnipresent, the attribute of Infinity? 
His suggestions, it is said, are to our thoughts ; but 
what can read them save Omniscience ? Is God so 
wont to give his honor to another, that he will thus 
throw two of the brightest jewels of his crown of 



ERRORS RESPECTING EVIL SPIRITS. 55 

perfection to a creature in rebellion against him? 
" It is for the trial of our faith," sailh the unreason- 
ing believer : then doth the temptation come prima- 
rily from God : but this Scripture doth forbid us to 
conceive ; for saith the apostle, " Let no man say he 
is tempted of God, when he is led away of his own 
lusts, and enticed,"* by that animal nature, namely, 
which we hold in common with the brutes, and 
which requireth the control of the rational part of us 
to keep it within due bounds, so that the soul may 
not be imbued with the taint of unruly earthly de- 
sires. And this notion of the extreme power of the 
devil is the growth of the last two or three centuries; 
for we shall find all the legendary tales of the mid- 
dle ages, figuring the evil spirit with the characteris- 
tics of the satyr of the Ethnicks ; easily foiled and 
cheated by man, and vanquished often, in strength 
or in wit, by the saint whom he assailed, by bodily, 
not by spiritual temptations; for I know of no in- 
stance among early legends, when the tempter is re- 
presented as a merely spiritual being. 

Good Doctor Martin Luther, who may be consi- 
dered as the father of our reformed churches, speak- 
eth of devils visiting his chamber in the shapes of 
animals; a clear deception of the senses, caused by 
undue excitement of the brain; but also in his calmer 
moments he describeth devils as melancholy spirits, 
inhabiting marshes, and desolate places, and ruins ; 
and not by any means as having that ubiquity which 
is now attributed to the universal tempter. Now 
this description of the devil, given by him, is exactly 
that which the ancients did give of their 8alfxiov, or 
demon, by the which word they described the spirit 
of a dead man after it hath quitted the body; for, 

* James i. 13. 14. 



56 OF SOME ERRORS RESPECTING 

they, conceiving it to have a separate existence, did 
imagine it to be a wandering, and somewhat unhappy- 
being, specially inhabiting deserts and desolate places, 
or marshy forests, such as were then to be found 
in Britain ; which country was, for that cause, then 
thought to be a special residence of demons. Nor 
was this word understood by the Greeks in a bad 
sense; for every disembodied spirit was, in their 
phrase, a demon; good, or bad, according to the 
disposition of the former man. In those days, when 
the apparently eternal stars were held to be spiritual 
existences, self-moved, and divine, it was an easy 
transition to imagine the bright ignes fatiii, so com- 
monly seen in the night in marshy places, to have a 
something of this divinity also, and thus it came to 
be thought that if the stars were gods, these fiery 
exhalations which did glance and move about, now 
seen, and now disappearing, were the appearances 
of that half divinity, the soul of man : and thus 
came the marshes of Britain and other places, to be 
peopled in imagination with these demons, or dis- 
embodied souls : a belief which, like the Zabianism, 
or star-worship, whereof it was part and parcel, did 
spread nearly over the world in former times. 

But there was also a form of this Zabianism which 
grew into more fame about the time of Darius the 
son of Hystaspes, through the intervention of Zoro- 
aster, under the title of the Magian doctrine; where- 
by the influences of the world were held to be di- 
vided between the Good and Evil Principle ; the 
one typified by the sun and light, — the other by the 
night and darkness ; these two principles being co- 
eternal, and in constant opposition to each other. This 
doctrine, which spread widely over the Persian em- 
pire and its dependencies, tainted, in many instances, 
the later Jewish faith, no less than that of demons 



THE NATURE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 57 

which they had learned from the Greeks, and haply 
also from the Egyptians : and in the embodiment of 
Satan, first in the book of Job, written at a time 
when Zabianism was prevalent,* and after that in the 
writings of the Rabbins, we find a mixture of the 
Magian Evil Principle, and the Greek demon, with 
somewhat of their own faith besides. This was the 
prevalent superstition in the times of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ : and all violent diseases were held to 
be caused by the intervention of demons, or souls 
of dead men, who, when ill-disposed, were supposed 
to enter into the living body of another man, and 
thus to inflict torment upon the person thus possess- 
ed; which superstition our Saviour doth well de- 
scribe, when he illustrateth his rebuke to the men of 
that generation, by the example of the unclean spirit, 
that when expelled, walketh through desert, or deso- 
late places, till he finally returneth with a company 
of seven others worse than himself, to torment the 
same man : in which description we see plainly that 
the spirit here spoken of was none other than the 
before mentioned SaJ^acoi/ of the Greeks, as well as 
the devil of the famous Doctor Martin Luther. But 
now, to the unlearned much confusion of ideas hath 
arisen from the constant translation of 8aifiu>v, or 
demon, by devil ^ because they attach to this latter 
word a meaning which it is likely the first translat- 
ors never meant to give to it, " He hath a devil and 
is mad,"t is a description at once of the assumed dis- 
ease, and the imagined cause thereof. 

I have many times thought that it was owing to 
the lofty and grandiose descriptions given in the 
Paradise Lost, that men, since the time when that 

* See Job xxxi. 26—28. 

"t" John X. 20. AaJjUo'vtov £;;^si xai (/.alnrai. 



58 OF SOME ERRORS RESPECTING 

poem came to be popular, have invested Satan with 
a kind of attributes never before assigned to him ; 
and as was natural to the increasing spirituality of 
religion, have more and more divested him of the 
notion of locality and form, till the Evil One of this 
age is become in effect and conceit of men, the Evil 
Principle of the Magians : i. e., a power co-existing 
with, and warring against the will of the good Deity. 
And this I must note as a most pestilent error, 
equally unauthorized by Scripture and by reason: 
and if any shall imagine this notion of theirs to be 
borne out by some passages which are freely quoted 
on such occasions, I must remind the unlearned 
reader, first, that as I have said already, many pas- 
sages translated devil are in the original demon 
(dal/xiov) and that when the word diabolus (6raj3o7ioj) 
occurreth, this term, in common parlance, meaneth 
an accuser or slanderer, as when the apostle re- 
proacheth the women who are diaboli, i. e., slander- 
ers.* It is to be farther borne in mind that the 
Christians of that day were pursued by the heathen 
with all manner of calumnies : and this will help us 
to the true application of many of the passages 
where this word is used in the Epistles of the Apos- 
tles, where it generally applies to those accusers of 
the faithful; as when 1 Tim. iii. 7, it is required 
that the bishop shall have a good report from them 
which are without, i. e., the heathen, " lest he fall 
into reproach, and the snare of the slander er,^^ or 
informer,^ (did^oxa.) In like manner the apostle 
Peter, in the fourth chapter of his first epistle, having 
warned his converts not to be terrified at the fiery trial 

* 1 Tim. iii. 11. rwvaTxaj axrauTo;; c-£,wva?;Otii ^ta^o'Xa?....Tit. ii. 

j" Ae; Je avTov Kai fxapTvptav KaXhv I'p^siV airo rZv 'i^xQev, i'va (ay) et; 
ovEtS'.a-jtcov ifATTian Kttt <jtayi^a, rn Jfa/SaXcy. 



THE NATURE OF EVIL SPIRITS. OU 

of persecution, proceedeth in chap. v. 8,* to recom- 
mend them to be sober-minded and vigilant: because 
their slanderous accuser was walking daily among 
them, seeking his prey : whom they were to resist, 
by steadfastly adhering to their Christian faith; know- 
ing, also, that not the Christians only, but their bre- 
thren that were in the world ; i. e., the unconverted 
heathen, suffered the like afflictions. For it is well 
known that from the days of Tiberius, downwards, 
the informers so frequently held up to detestation 
by Tacitus, the historian, under the title of delatores, 
were the very scourge of society ; no man being safe 
from their pestilent accusations. 

Much more might be said which the learned critic 
will not want my aid to discover, and which to the 
unlearned would haply seem wearisome, I shall not, 
therefore, pursue this examination of words, but call 
upon those who have hitherto so lightly received 
this notion respecting the great might of the tempter, 
to review it by the light of reason and common 
sense: for where were the goodness of God, had he 
endowed a wicked Spirit with such power over the 
minds of men, as to leave them small chance of dis- 
tinguishing between his suggestions and those of the 
ever blessed Spirit of Grace? Such a thing cannot 
be for a moment supposed of the loving Father, who 
hath so cared for our well being in all things : we 
may, therefore, well conclude, that be these fallen 
angels what they may, as to their inherent nature 
and state, their influence over us must be very slight, 

* Niiv^aTE, ypnyopriaaiB' on o avri^Mo; hfxSiv ^ia.$oho^, coq \kaov 
ojpyo/uevo; TrepnrarsT l^rtrajv rtva xaraTrlri. w, avTir«T£ ^Epsoi rri Tri^n, 
Ei'S'oTEf Ta avTo. tSv Tta.Qny.aroov rn gv KO(Tfxai 1[a.uiv a'^tK<^OTr\rt Ivi- 
rtXeTcrSai' wherein it may be observed that the Jack of the Arti- 
cle to the word diabolus doth deprive it of its Substantive sense 
and make it in a manner an Adjective to ayTiJixo;. 



^0 ERRORS RESPECTING EVIL SPIRITS. 

if not altogether null : and the worst tempter will be 
found to be that evil spirit in a fair form, — the corrupt 
soul of man ; for bad companions are for the most 
part the real seducers of the unwary ; and it is not 
an invisible suggestion that leadeth us astray, but 
early misgovernment, and the remembrance of evil 
books, evil conversation, and evil example which 
taint us with the infection of sin ; a poison which 
may be met by the antidote of wise and holy instruc- 
tion previously administered, but which when re- 
ceived without such preparation is for the most part 
deadly. Thus bad men by making themselves the 
willing promoters of sin here, fit themselves to be 
the companions of the Evil One hereafter, and are 
indeed his angels or agents upon earth. 



AN INQUIRY IF IGNORANCE BE REQUI- 
SITE TO INNOCENCE. 

Plausible errors be like wild roses : they bear 
indeed here and there a pleasant blossom, but it soon 
falleth : and their thick offsets do choke the growth 
of better things. Among these well sounding errors, 
I reckon the notion held by some, that innocence is 
only to be preserved by ignorance of evil. Truly 
it were a pleasant thing to him who is weary of 
contemplating the vices and miseries of mankind, to 
think that there were means of closing eyes, and 
ears, and understanding, so as never to have cogni- 
zance of these ills : but it is childish to sigh after 
what is clearly impossible; and even were this pos- 
sible, I doubt much if our happiness, either present 
or future, would be so great as now it may be, if we 
do only avail ourselves of the real use of knowing 
the evil, by choosing of our own free will the good, 
and persevering in the pursuit thereof. For to know 
evil, and to do it, are two widely different things. 

The only man who ever had full cognizance of 
human nature, was he who being himself the bodily 
shrine of the Deity, and his own human soul in per- 
fect union with its Divine Prototype, could measure 
the influences of the corporeal on the spiritual by 
mere self-examination ; and we may well believe 
that when the ever blessed God, as Saint Clement, 
of Alexandria, doth strongly express it, came as a 
man, in order through human lips " to teach man 
how he might become a God," and to be as the 
Apostle hath it, " an ensample" for our imitation, 
6 



62 AN INQUIRY IF IGNORANCE 

we may walk safely under his guidance. Now a 
very few words of his enemies' reproaches will 
show that the saying of the heathen, homo sum et 
humani nihil a me alienum puto was not inappli- 
cable to him. He was called by those who, in that 
age also, thought a separation from the evil world the 
best safeguard of innocence, " a glutton and a wine- 
bibber ; a friend of publicans and sinners," which 
terms being taken with that largeness of interpreta- 
tion which belongeth to the slanders of an enemy, — 
who generally hath skill enough to ground his ill 
sayings upon some apparent truth,— would seem to 
show that this only perfect man who ever trod this 
earth of ours, mixed among all sorts ; as if to show 
the beauty of holiness, contrasted with the ugli- 
ness of vice ; and thus to win men from their sins, 
by making them love virtue better. God, who 
knoweth all things, seeth every day more sin than 
the worst of us would care to talk of in common 
society ; yet that complete knowledge of evil, though 
it saddened, did not corrupt the human soul of the 
Saviour : he wept for his " brethren according to 
the flesh;" — abhorred vice, yet loved man; — lived 
among us, — lived among us too at a season when 
evil was rife, and when the corruption of society 
generally had arrived at a point that required no less 
an intervention than that of God himself to check 
it. All this he saw and knew, and yet, — with all 
the infirmities, passions, and temptations of a man, 
— he passed the dangerous season of youth un- 
spotted ; happy in his spiritual union with God, and 
ready to bear all that evil men could inflict, in order 
to ensure that union to all eternity. 

But he " came for our ensample :" innocence 
therefore is npde of other stuff" than ignorance ; yea 
we shall find^at it is a substantive rather than a 



BE REQUISITE TO INNOCENCE. 63 

negative quality ; and consisteth not so much in a 
mere absence of evil, — for then the house might be 
only swept and garnished to make it a readier home 
for the demon when he cometh, — as in the presence 
of good which leaveth no room for him to enter. 

And now, having shown that the ignorance of evil 
is not necessary to innocence, the question remaineth, 
which to parents and teachers is an anxious one, 
how the knowledge of it may be communicated 
without peril to virtue ? — and here again that perfect 
"ensample" leaveth us not to doubt. The know- 
ledge of evil, along with all other knowledge, was 
communicated to the mind of the child at the earliest 
age wherein it can receive knowledge ; since as his 
human constitution was perfect in soul and body, so 
the spiritual union with the Deity was also complete 
from the first: therefore, to Christ, it was among the 
first of his recollections as a human being. Doth 
not this show us that the ordinary course is wrong? 
We are wont to keep the knowledge of ill from our 
children as long as possible, so as for the most part 
to leave it to be instilled into them by those who 
have a design to corrupt, and therefore paint it in 
fair colors. It was not so that the young child at 
Nazareth was educated; — he who, alone, of all 
men, was educated by God himself. He saw, — for 
God's own knowledge was in him, — the full ugliness 
of vice, and all its eternal consequences, long ere 
the animal frame had arrived at the point when the 
voice of the tempter might have its charms ; and we 
have seen the results ; strange, that we should never 
yet have thought of trying the same plan ! I do 
most assuredly think that more make shipwreck of 
their virtue out of a childish and natural curiosity, 
and inquisitiveness after new things, than out of any 
inherent love of evil, and that were the constitution 



64 AN INQUIRY IF IGNORANCE 

of animal nature early set forth to the child by pa- 
rents or teachers, with that gravity which becometh 
them ; and none of those allurements of sensual 
pleasure held out, which are the great weapons of 
the tempter ; the child, knowmg all that he wisheth 
to know, at a time when as yet the passions are not 
awakened, would turn his thoughts to other objects 
of more import, and greater nobleness : and feel dis- 
gusted rather than allured by the conversation of 
the impure and vicious in after life: and this I say 
from experience and conviction, no less regarding 
youth of one sex, than the other. I would speak 
thus, and indeed have so spoken with good effect — 
" My child, man, in his compound nature, belongeth 
to two worlds; by this mortal and perishable body 
he is bound to earth, and partaketh of the nature of 
the beasts ; his internal constitution is almost the 
same ; he is generated, born, and dieth like them ; 
but in his soul he holdeth something of the nature 
of God, and hath the promise that if he duly cherish 
this divine spark, he shall finally enjoy the felicity 
proper to God himself. We are placed in this world 
to choose between animal and spiritual enjoyment; 
for happiness can only be the result of having and 
doing what we like to have and do; and there- 
fore God leaveth us free. If we bind ourselves to 
earth by cherishing all our animal propensions, and 
thinking about all that pertaineth to our animal na- 
ture, rather than to our spiritual, then we, having 
fixed all our pleasures here, can never enjoy any 
other kind of life ; and when this faileth us, which 
it doth gradually in age, and entirely in death, we 
have nothing left but useless regrets : whereas if we 
only give the body so much consideration as shall 
keep it in health, and devote ourselves to the pleas- 
ures of the mind; then we are every day becoming 



BE REQUISITE TO INNOCENCE. 65 

more fit for the happiness God hath promised us. 
Surely we are more noble than the beasts, and it is 
pleasant to feel our own dignity ; yet he that talketh 
and thinkelh only of the things of the body, seem- 
eth to forget that he hath a rank above them. Would 
a woman wish to become no better than a cow; a 
useful animal, with no thought above bringing her 
offspring into the world, and caring for their food ? 
Is man formed with a divine soul merely to run the 
wild career of an untamed colt ; to be broken by 
stripes to do his part in this world, with no thought 
beyond it ?" Should questions arise out of such 
a conversation. Jet them be answered fairly, gravely, 
and truly. Let the child know what his mother suf- 
fered in giving him birth : he will love her the better, 
and when he cometh to man's estate, that thought 
of bitter suffering, and danger to life, will make the 
jest of the libertine sound to his ears like the laugh 
of the executioner. Nor, because I here use the 
masculine gender, would I confine this knowledge to 
that sex only: women no less than men must look 
into the depths of life, ere they will be able to make 
that free choice of the good whereon our eternal 
felicity doth depend : women no less than men are 
exposed to the arts of the tempter, and have no less 
need that the childish hand should be trained to use 
the weapons of defence. Gratify the young mind 
by bringing before it the wonders of science, not as 
a drudgery, but a recreation; accustom the child to 
seek knowledge as pleasure, and there is little fear 
that youth will be misspent, or old age contemptible. 
And here too we may recur to the education of the 
Saviour, of whose childhood two things are recorded 
— the first, that at twelve years old he astonished the 
doctors in the temple by his thirst for knowledge, and 
the share of it which he had already acquired ; — the 



66 AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

other, that this true science, thus bestowed by his 
Divine Father and Tutor, had no evil effect on his 
human soul; but that he returned to his home, showed 
all filial duty to his far more ignorant parents, and 
won the affection of all by his amiable manners. So 
true is it that real knowledge causeth no vanity. And 
herein, before I conclude, I would note one error more 
common and more fatal than all the rest. Whilst 
contemplating the Divine AOros which spake by 
the lips of Jesus of Nazareth, we too often forget 
his complete human nature, and whilst bowing in 
distant adoration to the ineffable Deity, we overlook 
the man in whom he enshrined his glory. But God 
doth nothing in vain : he could have spoken to us in 
the whirlwind, or have written his commands in cha- 
racters of fire before our eyes : but he chose to come 
among us as one of ourselves ; he sought to lead us 
back to him by means of our social affections : to 
show a human being so amiable that we might love, 
and imitate because we loved him. Surely then it 
is the greatest of all errors to cast away the benefits 
of such an "ensample," and although Christ lived 
in this world upwards of thirty years, to turn our 
attention only to his death. If his life had no benefit 
for us, why did he go through all the stages of child- 
hood and youth? a better notion is it which I have 
lately seen expressed. " Christ," says the author, 
'' showed himself among us only as a child and a 
young man. He well knew that he who followed his 
steps so far, would need no guide for his old age." 



OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 

It would seem strange that in an age which doth 
boast itself as literary, there should be any need to 
enumerate errors of this kind, as prevalent among 
those who have received what in common parlance 
is called a good, or liberal education : yet from what- 
ever cause, whether from carelessness, or conceit of 
knowledge which maketh study needless, it is a 
thing certain that many barbarisms have crept into 
the writing and speaking of English, which a mode- 
rate knowledge of grammar would have prevented. 
It was indeed a common saying in the last age, that 
this English tongue of ours hath no forms of gram- 
mar proper to it; and that therefore reading and 
writing do, as goodman Dogberry is made to say, 
"come by nature," without the necessity for any 
study thereof, save such as is gained by the exercise 
in the Latin and Greek tongues which in " grammar 
schools" is required. Yet he who should fancy that 
he could learn German phraseology and idiom by 
the study of Latin, would be laughed to scorn by 
all: why then should it be imagined that the sister 
dialect hath in it less of grammatical peculiarity. 

Unfortunately for lingual purity, the study of gram- 
mar hath in it little to captivate the imagination; and 
most seem to shrink therefrom with a kind of horror, 
the result of the severities of early pedagogues ; and 
this rendereth the correction of such like errors a task 
of almost hopeless difficulty ; yet that I may acquit 
mine own conscience, and be in no way an accessory 
to the murder of the king's or queen's English, I 



bo OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 

shall endeavor to point out some of the principal 
modes of defacing and injuring this our ancient 
tongue. 

I will note in the first place the confusion made in 
the cases of pronouns by persons of good learning 
in other matters, for though it be well known that 
in the Teutonic family of languages generally, the 
four cases chiefly to be noted in the Greek, from 
whence the old Teutones appear to have derived 
the main structure of their language, — do exist, — 
namely the nominative, genitive, dative, and accusa- 
tive : and though it be equally well known that our 
tongue is of that family, and so cognate to the Ger- 
man that the natives of that great country do speak 
English with a facility unknown to any of the south- 
ern nations of Europe, — yet in practice is this matter 
wholly disregarded ; and nominative and accusative 
are strangely interchanged, to the great discomfort of 
ears trained to grammatical accuracy. Thus you or 
ye may be used indifferently in the nominative : but 
you is always the accusative and dative : and pre- 
positions, it is well known, do not admit a nomina- 
tive case to follow them. Yet shall we find poets 
defacing their pages with such oversights as disgrace 
the following passage, which for its poetic force and 
depth of feeling did well deserve a less careless 
phraseology. 

" Oh serious eye, how is it that the light, 
The burning rays that mine pour into ye, 
Still find ye cold, and dead, and dark as night ? 
Oh lifeless eyes, can ye not answer me ? 
Oh lips whereon mine own so often dwell. 
Hath love's warm, fearful, thrilling touch, no spell 
To waken sense in ye? Oh misery ! 
Oh breathless lips, can ye not speak to me ?" 

Here ye occurs five times, and twice only is it in its 
proper place as the nominative of the verb : in each 



OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 69 

of the others it is either governed by a preposition 
or a verb transitive, and therefore should have been 
you. To an ear accustomed to a right construction 
of language such a fault is not a little offensive, and 
the beauty of poetry is as much vitiated thereby as 
if, in the human visage, the eye and eyebrow should 
be continually changing their relative position, and 
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, should take 
the upper place. 

Furthermore there groweth out of this disregard of 
the just declension of pronouns by some authors of 
good repute, a notion that they are in fact indeclin- 
able, and that, therefore, the cases must always be 
expressed by circumlocutions. Thus many a pre- 
tender to fine writing would fancy he had done well 
by using the preposition of, in lieu of the genitive 
case, and will say, of whom, rather than, whose; 
although, according to the grammar and idiom of 
our tongue, the use of the genitive whose be far the 
more proper: for the one relative pronoun who, is 
thus declined, 

Maa. Fem. Neut. 

Nom. Who Which 

Gen. Whose Which 

Dat. & Ace. Whom Which 

and the idiom of the Teutonic family of languages 
doth require, for beauty and strength of expression, 
the use of the genitive case, wherever the hissing 
sound thereof doth not so far make it unpleasant to 
the ear as to require it to be avoided euphonise 
gratia. 

Besides this confusion in the pronouns, another 
error doth very commonly find place in conversation 
and periodical publications, and sometimes also in 
writers of a better order ; namely, the putting of an 
abverb where the true construction of the language 
7 



70 OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 

doth require a conjunction. The true place of the 
adverb, as the name doth in a measure import, is 
after the verb, i. e., added to it, while the conjunc- 
tion goeth before it; yet we shall commonly hear 
the adverbs of time directly, and immediately, placed 
in the stead of the conjunctive phrase as soon as. 
If the adverb be ever allowed a place before the verb 
in good writing, it is then merely a companion of a 
preposition giving intensity and preciseness to it, as 
it doth also in some cases to a noun adjective, as 
^''directly after hearing" — ^^immediately on hear- 
ing" — or with an adjective, as ^^ directly good" — 
"immediately relative to"— but never should it be 
used in the fashion of — " directly he heard" — in- 
stead of "«s soon as he heard." 

Then again we find all writers and teachers es- 
chewing with especial care, the placing of a prepo- 
sition at the end of a sentence ; yet in the Hoch 
Teutsch, or German, which is the younger sister of 
English Saxon, it is a rule that under certain circum- 
stances it shall be so placed ; and in the racy, idiom- 
atic language of our elder writers, it is frequently 
found to be so ; though perhaps few discover why 
this style to our ears soundeth better and more for- 
cible. Inclined to, — hoped for, and the like, are 
phrases of this nature, and as happily this old Saxon 
form retaineth its hold in the spoken, though it be 
losing it in the written language, we may peradven- 
ture hope that writers will at last find out that when 
addressing English ears, they should use the English 
tongue. 

There is another fault heard frequently in common 
parlance, but not yet, as I think, written: videlicet, 
the use of the noun adjective like with a verb and its 
nominative; a position which it hath no claim to, 
in the room of the conjunction as. Thus we shall 



OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 71 

hear school boys and young college men say " I did 
that like he did," instead of — " as he did" — an error, 
which, though it have not yet found its way into 
print, will do so ere long, unless this mode of speak- 
ing be corrected. 

And so much may suffice for the errors in gram- 
mar of such as are by courtesy supposed well in- 
structed on such points. But there is a further error 
in books especially devoted to the science, which is 
of yet greater import, as it not unfrequently may 
vitiate the sense of a translation, and thus deceive 
the unlearned reader. Every foreigner who would 
learn English, knoweth to his cost, that if in the just 
use of shall, and will, lieth one of the main beauties 
of the language, so also doth its greatest difficulty : 
yet it is for him both sad and strange that no one 
hath clearly set it forth in any work of grammar. 
In such works I do constantly find the future tense 
of verbs written / shall or will, as though their use 
were indifferent : a fault which leadeth to many mis- 
takes, and much mockery of strangers, by those, 
who, from long habit, have gained the true use of 
these words. Neither is this without ill effect in 
the most important of all writings ; for in more than 
one passage in Holy Writ a careless putting of one 
word for the other by the ti'anslators, doth strangely 
confound our understanding thereof. For according 
to common usage, which in a living and spoken 
tongue is the best rule of signification, the simple 
future tense runneth thus, 

I shall We shall ) 

Thou wilt Ye will \ go 

He will They will ) 

and if any one will change this arrangement, he will 
perceive that he sayeth not what he meaneth to ex- 
press; as is well seen in the oft-repeated jest of the 



72 OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 

Frenchman in the water, exclaiming " I will be 
drowned — nobody shall help me," wherein by con- 
founding the different persons of the simple future 
tense, an extraordinary perversion of sense is occa- 
sioned. Let us but reverse the order thus 

I will We will ^ 

Thou shalt Ye shall > go 
He shall They shall) 

and we shall find that in this form, which for dis- 
tinction's sake I shall call the second future, it hath 
an imperative force not by any means belonging to 
the first. And though this distinction be wanting in 
those modern tongues which . are derived from the 
Latin, which hath it not, yet we find it to exist in 
some measure in the Greek, which hath an impera- 
tive future; and in the Hebrew, which hath besides 
the simple active voice, and the future thereunto 
belonging, another voice which is causative ; the 
future whereof partaketh of the nature of our second 
future, as above noted, and this voice the Rabbins 
are wont to call Hiphil. Now in that passage of 
the book of Genesis where the Lord God is said to 
speak to Adam and his wife after their transgression, 
the tense used is not in Hiphil, but in the simple 
active future, notwithstanding which the translators 
have rendered it by "thou shalt,^^ whereby the no- 
tions of the unlearned are much confounded, and 
they do rather see therein a stern judge condemning, 
than a good father telling his children the necessary 
consequences of what they had done ; they having 
been forewarned that, according to the nature given 
them, such consequences must ensue. A serious 
evil resulting from a seemingly small grammatical 
fault ! 

It might well nigh be thought from the common- 
ness of this confusion in books professing to treat on 



OF ERRORS IN GRAMMAR. 73 

grammar, that the English nation was jealous of all 
others, and resolved, by keeping the key of their lan- 
guage in a labyrinth, to prevent any but themselves 
from attaining to the use thereof; a great reproach to 
the people, were it true : but scarcely a less reproach 
is it, that there should be so general an ignorance of 
grammar rules as to render the right speaking our 
language a matter of custom only, no one being able 
to give any good reason therefor. 



OF CERTAIN ERRORS CURRENT IN 

REGARD TO DISEASE AND 

MEDICINE. 

In times past when a man fell sick, he was wont, 
if he were great enough to find that expense practi- 
cable, to send to some oracle for counsel ; as Ahaziah, 
albeit he might have known better, seeing that he was 
of Israelitish blood, sent messengers unto Baal, the god 
of flies, at Ekron, to inquire concerning the disease 
he was sufl"ering from : and if this habit infected even 
the people chosen to be the depositaries of the truth, 
we may well guess how prevalent it must have been 
among the heathen. To this succeeded the belief 
in particular shrines of Christian saints, and you 
shall even yet see, it may be, in some chapel of this 
kind in a remote place, where the ancient supersti- 
tion surviveth merely under a change of name, as 
great a number of ex voto offerings of silver and 
waxen eyes, legs, arms, and the like, as ever covered 
the walls of the temple at Delphi. Now-a-days 
superstitions of this kind have taken a fresh course, 
and, notwithstanding that they no longer enrich the 
priests of ^Esculapius, or of Apollo, or of Isis, they 
nevertheless set up for themselves some living idol, 
and he being supposed, like the Pythoness of old, 
to be inspired with a certain divine afflatus, they pay 
their offerings to him as religiously as ever did any 
ancient votary of the god or the saint, and trust to 
him with as implicit a faith : witness the tales I have 
heard of a certain Mr. St. John Long, who, in regard 



OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO DISEASE, ETC. 75 

to the excoriations he practised upon his votaries 
might haply be considered as an avatar of that Ek- 
ronitish god of flies, whose fame tempted even the 
King of Israel to apply to him : for with the aid of 
some French or German critic I doubt not it might 
be proved that Baal-zebub was none other than an 
emplastnim of cantharides. 

But leaving that matter to those who are skilled 
in such etymologies, I will afiirm that there is no 
medical practitioner of good sense and erudition, 
who doth not regret that any such oracular venera- 
tion should be bestowed on him, seeing that it is for 
the most part no less harmful to himself than it is to 
the patient, who ignorantly expecteth him to work 
miracles when he can only bring to his aid the 
patient attention of an experienced and carefully 
educated man. Yea, ofttimes, in order to satisfy 
the unreasoning patient, who, indeed, is usually most 
impatient, he hath to hold language which savoreth 
more of the charlatan than of the wise and cautious 
examiner of nature, and thus may lose credit in the 
eyes of the better instructed, while he is applying 
himself to the calming of an uneasy mind, which 
fevereth the body the more from the not well know- 
ing what it hath to dread. 

It is an ill finish to a thing in itself good, that 
the division and subdivision of labor which in later 
times have produced so much excellence in arts me- 
chanical, have been carried also into learned profes- 
sions and sciences, wherein such minute division is 
not profitable, but the contrary thereof. For each 
man applying himself with eagerness to his own par- 
ticular calling, doth thereupon conclude that others 
do the like ; and thus imagineth that he may trust 
them for all those parts of science which pertain 
more immediately to their especial vocation: and 



76 OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO 

thus he seeketh not to inform himself enough there- 
upon to be able to judge of the competence of him 
whose counsel he seeketh, be it physician or surgeon, 
lawyer or priest : albeit in his capacity of a human 
being living in society, he be personally and deeply 
interested in all the questions which these faculties 
do profess to treat of. Yet so little doth the appli- 
cant ofttimes know of his own affair, that he puz- 
zleth his oracle. Thus a lawyer shall often be hard 
put to it, to gather from his client those points which 
chiefly bear upon his case ; and the physician hath 
no less difficulty in detecting the symptoms which 
shall guide him to a true knowledge of the disease : 
the ignorance of the patient thus hebetizing, as it 
were, the art of the doctor, by concealing, or forget- 
ting, it may be, as a matter of no signification, 
the more important though perhaps less troublesome 
symptom, and detailing at inconvenient length what 
might well be passed over. Thus many a man hath 
become permanently insane because a headache, or 
a little more than usual watchfulness, are held to be 
things scarcely worth attention ; and no medical aid 
is called in, or any remedy attempted, till the brain 
is so seriously diseased as probably to make all re- 
medies vain. No year passeth wherein there is not 
some instance of suicide committed by persons who 
had for a time complained of headache, and seemed 
depressed in spirits ; but whose friends, considering 
this to be a matter of no concernment, had paid 
slight heed thereto ; and only remembered it for 
their own advantage, as preventing a forfeiture of 
goods consequent on a verdict oi felo de se, instead 
of noting it for that of the sufferer, by taking meas- 
ures for reducing that diseased action in the brain, 
which was indeed the cause of the pain first, and 
next of the insane self-destruction which followed. 



DISEASE AND MEDICINE. 77 

I do note therefore as an error of much evil conse- 
quence, the notion which some men have, that igno- 
rance of everything relating to anatomy and medicine 
is safe and even desirable, so long as some medical 
practitioner, no matter what his skill, may be within 
reach. 

I have seen this wilful ignorance carried yet far- 
ther, indeed to such a point that were it not so grave 
a matter, that a jest thereon would savor too much 
of levity, I could gather good matter for laughter 
thereout. For I remember once hearing it said by 
a lawyer of good ability, when speaking of a preach- 
er whose church he frequented, " I have been told 
by persons who are judges of such things, that his 
sermons are very good. I cannot myself understand 
them, but that is not my business :" and yet this 
man was no scoffer, or despiser of sacred things ; 
but he had' seemingly considered the priest as a sort 
of commissary, paid and bound by his engagement, 
to supply food for the souls of a certain district, the 
which if he did not furnish, it may be that the man 
of law, judging of another world by that part of this 
which was his chief concernment, imagined that 
there would be a legal remedy in the High Court of 
Heaven ; and haply, dreamed of an action for damages 
if, through negligence of the appointed teacher, he 
should be defrauded of his share of future happiness. 

Now if it be folly so to leave another to cater for 
our life eternal, as if misery could be borne by proxy, 
and we should suffer no loss provided the blame of 
the loss could be thrown on another ; I think we 
must accuse him of a folly only lesser in degree than 
this one, who should so entirely trust another in 
regard to his bodily health, as to risk the losing it 
whilst hoping to restore it : for the lack of skill, or 
the lack of attention in him who is thus trusted, can 



78 OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO 

neither be detected nor checked by a man wholly 
ignorant of his own frame and constitution, of the 
nature of the pharmaceutical preparations employed, 
of their probable effects, or of the benefit which the 
pres€riber expecteth that he will derive therefrom. 
The mere mistake of a chemist's boy may thus put his 
life to hazard, for he knoweth not what he swallow- 
eth : or if the practitioner be unskillful, no mistake 
may be needed to increase the risk. Neither doth 
some scientifical acquaintance with these matters 
make a refractory or hypochondriacal patient, as 
some profess to apprehend ; for quiet submission to 
our lot doth usually grow out of a rational know- 
ledge of how far it may admit of amendment, how 
far it must be borne ; and, on the other hand, there 
is no obstinacy like that of ignorance, and no phan- 
tasm so difficult to remove as that which cannot be 
reasoned with. For though the imagination, when 
preternaturally excited, may work wonders through 
the influence exercised by the brain over the muscu- 
lar fibre, by means of the nerves thence proceeding, 
yet this is but a sorry kind of curative process ; 
seeing that it is uncertain, and will oftener be turned 
against the practitioner, than, may be, it can second 
him. 

There is no charlatan, how ridiculous soever may 
be his pretensions when tried by the light of sober 
reason, that doth not find his followers, even in this 
age of fancied enlightenment ; and those who con- 
sult this lying oracle shall many times be found, on 
inquiry, to be persons of very sufficient acuteness 
and good sense in their own vocation : yet the clear- 
ness of their intellect availeth them not in this mat- 
ter, which is even of more concernment to comfort 
than either riches or greatness. But there is one 
class more especially the prey of such pretenders, 



DISEASE AND MEDICINE. 79 

videlicet, the female sex, who being, by the erro- 
neous notions in regard to the fitting education for a 
woman, kept, for the most part, in profound igno- 
rance of every useful part of knowledge, listen to 
and credit what is told them, because they have 
never been sufficiently indoctrinated to be able to 
detect a fallacy either in science or argument. And 
yet, who needeth so much to know something of 
anatomy and pharmacy as they, who by their natu- 
ral constitution are less fortified than the other sex 
against the assaults of disease ? 

How much of the imprudence which incurreth 
sickness, and the waywardness which ill beareth it, 
would be prevented if men in their youth were 
taught to know so much of the human corporeal 
frame as to be able to measure their own powers, 
and neither over nor under task them ! For he who 
demanded too much from his muscles or his brain, 
will strain, and damage them : but he who demandelh 
not enough, doth himself a yet more irreparable 
injury; for then they gain not their due development, 
and are unfit for use when the occasion calleth for 
their exertion. And indeed I must herein accuse 
those of mine own profession of some misapprehen- 
sion ; for you shall find the medical attendant oft- 
times deny his patient the use of books, or of writ- 
ing or of such like amusement, as holding that this 
kind of occupation will fatigue, and thus retard the 
cure. Yet the same physician will desire that the 
sick person shall be taken out of bed for refreshment, 
and ease of body, so soon as the severity of disease 
is somewhat abated ; nay that, if possible, he shall 
be removed to another chamber for the sake of a 
fresher air than that contaminated by his own fevered 
breath. Hath then the brain no function also which 
is to be attended to, in order to restore its healthy 



80 OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO 

influence over the other parts? Who amongst us 
hath not seen how much the discontents and griefs 
of the mind impair digestion, and interrupt the regu- 
lar course of the circulation, with the due secretions 
therefrom resulting ? And shall we imagine to re- 
store the patient by refusing amusement, and keeping 
him constantly pining under the sickness of hope 
deferred, thinking of his sufferings because he hath 
nothing else to think of, and fevering himself with 
restless wishes for what he cannot have. Leave 
him his book — he will read till he is weary, and 
then he will sleep. Suffer him to write — if his arm 
or his head ache in consequence, he will soon lay 
aside his pen and seek repose to fit himself to resume 
it ; and in meantime, if the symptoms be not very 
urgent, his sufferings will be forgotten, and the cheer- 
fulness of health will return, and aid the cure, it may 
be, more than all the drugs thou canst administer. 

When even a healthy man is put into solitary 
confinement, we have had good experience in sun- 
dry lamentable cases, that his bodily constitution 
sinketh under the unnatural state of mind thereby 
engendered. Wilt thou shut up one who is suffering 
already from sickness, and haply with no society 
save that of a stupid nurse, without any means of 
amusing his mind ? Shall he have no employment 
but the counting the beats of his fevered pulse, or 
the stripes or the flowers in the paper or bed furni- 
ture, it may be ; or figuring horrid faces from shad- 
ows, — or the fancying landscapes in the veins of 
the marble chimney piece, — or the gazing on some 
portrait, haply, till he fancieth the eyes move, and 
he almost shrieketh at the frightful creation of his 
own fantasy. Is this the way to promote convale- 
scence ? My worthy brother, thou art but half a 
master of the healing art if thou hast never learned 



DISEASE AND MEDICINE. 81 

to bring the mind to aid in the body's cure. So 
mighty an agent existeth not in the whole round of 
natural causes ; and thou raayest thank thy favor- 
able stars if it be thy fate to find a patient who can 
and will mentally recreate himself during sickness ; 
for he will live by the force of intellectual activity, 
where the weak and desponding would sink and die. 
But, methinks, I hear it said, " I do not deny my 
patients fitting amusement — they may read a novel 
— they may delectate themselves with the visits of 
the Apothecary, who will listen to all their com- 
plaints, and besides giving a large share of pity, will 
delight them with abundance of talk touching the 
news of the day." — But this is not the healthy exer- 
cise of the mind ; it is by forgetting ailments, not by 
talking about them, that the cure is promoted ; nor 
is it to be supposed that the idle desultory gossip of 
the neighborhood, or the absorbing interest of a 
work of fiction, whose merit consists in the taking 
such hold of the imagination that it cannot be dis- 
missed at will ; — furnish that train of gently consecu- 
tive and satisfactory reflections, which may sooth 
into quiet sleep : for the brain, sufi*ering somewhat 
of the debility of the rest of the body, beareth not 
sudden jerks and disruptions of thought, but delight- 
eth in following one subject, or shifting into another 
by easy stages as it were. The delectations of the 
wise and good, therefore, during illness are very dif- 
ferent from the above mentioned, and we shall find 
that their favorite recreations will be the truths of 
science and of religion, the book of God's works, and 
the book of God's laws. These bring us into im- 
mediate communion with the Deity, and as the fabled 
Antaeus gained fresh strength from touching his mother 
earth, so doth man — the son of the Highest, gain 



82 OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO 

power from bringing his soul into contact with his 
Almighty Father. Earth and its concerns are so 
brief, so small, to him whose mind hath been thus 
employed, that even should the illness promise to be 
life-long, the thought bringeth no despondency. How 
can it do so to one who hath no mind to return to 
the paltry littleness of every-day life ? Many a great 
mind hath matured in a sickroom works which make 
it evident that the vigor of intellect — the light of 
heaven, it may be, beaming on the inward eye, — hath 
triumphed over the ills of the body. Oh leave the 
sick man his books ; leave him his lofty thoughts ; 
his hope that even in this seclusion he is not wholly 
useless ; his strong will, his upward aspirations ! 

I remember some years ago visiting often an ex- 
cellent man who had long been suffering severely, 
and whose age left small hope that he would ever 
recover health. He was wise enough to seek mental 
recreation, — good enough to seek such as gave him 
peace and hope, nor shall I easily forget the anima- 
tion which lighted up his pale face as he talked of 
his favorite pursuit. He had undertaken a critical 
translation of the gospels, and his delight when he 
could throw any new light on an obscure passage 
was boundless. I asked him once how soon he 
should jEinish his work. "Never," was his answer ; 
" had I other pressing business to attend to, I might 
conclude this ; — but now, what can I have so sooth- 
ing as this blessed book always before my eyes ? — 
The desire to make my rendering more perfect, gives 
a definite object and a zest to all my other reading, 
and I am amused without losing sight of what I love. 
A work of fiction may serve to divert an hour for a 
fellow that hath never had an ache in his shoulders, 
but to one who hath little to enjoy in life save the 
hope of quitting it, there is no book like this. All 



DISEASE AND MEDICINE. 83 

Others pall and weary, excepting as they connect 
themselves with the great end of man's being, and 
the foundation of his expectations. I sleep quietly 
when I finish the day in such guise." By thus giv- 
ing, as he himself expressed it, a definite object to 
his excursive reading, it gained a sufficient interest 
to render the mind active : history, travels, philo- 
logy, all bore in some way on his pursuit ; and it 
was pleasant to see the joyful and triumphant air 
with which he would sometimes hold up to me a 
book he had just purchased, exclaiming "I shall 
find something here for my work." To the day of 
his death he never ceased to retouch his darling 
translation. 

There is also another error which groweth out of, 
and is in a measure dependent on the notions which 
the learned in medicine have unwittingly encouraged. 
You shall hear it given as a symptom of one disease 
that it causeth great depression of spirits, of another 
that it is attended by peculiar irritability of temper ; 
and so on through all the moods which suff"ering 
may be expected to produce in untaught or untrained 
minds ; who, as a dog howleth when he is chained 
up, or snarleth and snappeth at any one who would 
administer relief to him when injured, yield to all 
animal emotions, and are sad or gay as the course of 
the bloody prompteth. But this, though alack ! it 
be a common, is yet by no means a necessary con- 
sequence of disease, and though the physician may 
need to know this when he hath to deal with ill-re- 
gulated minds, he is wrong if he expect that this 
shall always be the case, and still more wrong if he 
assert it so to be. For thus shall he, perchance, on 
the one hand, mistake hugely the case of one who 
hath so little of the animal in him that he will not 
howl when he is hurt ; and on the other encourage 



84 OF ERRORS IN REGARD TO DISEASE, EfC. 

in weak-minded persons the yielding to the impulses 
of peevishness and ill humour, as thinking them such 
natural consequences of disease as to admit of no 
restraint : and thus haply the health of the attendant 
friends shall be more damaged by the weariness of 
trying to soothe one who thinketh he hath license 
for his fretfulness, than his who thus weareth out 
those who would minister to his comfort. Selfish- 
ness is an ugly vice at all times ; but sickness hath 
double horrors if the moral constitution be broken 
down as well as the bodily : for surely he must have 
more than ordinarily long legs who would think to 
step into the blessedness of heaven, from the queru- 
lous peevishness which hath made his sick room a 
hell. 



OF THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY AS 
TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 

I SHOULD, I think, hardly satisfy my readers, I am 
sure I should not satisfy myself, were I to conclude 
this my discourse without farther inquiry into those 
false opinions which I have already taken occasion 
to notice in a more brief and cursory manner, with 
regard to the true position of women in society, as 
in this later age it is constituted. For herein it 
s^emeth to me that many errors, bequeathed to us 
by our ancestors, do continue to bear fruit of more 
bitter consequence than any that was plucked in 
Paradise, and, as in that fault, albeit the woman may 
oftentimes be the agent in the evil, all do eat thereof 
to their great discomfort and detriment. Wherefore 
I propose, good reader, to note some of these errors, 
their causes, and, according to my poor apprehen- 
sion, their remedy also : so that, be thou male or 
female, thou shalt peradventure find this inquiry not 
wholly useless to thy present instruction and future 
good. 

The first step of such an inquiry must be set very 
far back, for as the first scene in the drama of human 
existence was laid in Eden, so we must take that for 
our starting point; since there, if ever, we shall find 
what is the true relation of the sexes in society. And 
if it be said that both forfeited their claim to that true 
relation when they quitted that sweet garden ; be it 
remembered that in all the dealings of God with man 
since that time, the object of his dispensations has 
been the reinstatement of his erring children in the 
8 



86 CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

same, yea even in a better state than that which their 
animal and sensual nature tempted them for a time 
to abandon : therefore we do properly fulfil his will, 
and advance his kingdom, by endeavoring to ascer- 
tain that true and pristine state, and, as far as in us 
lieth, to restore it. 

Woman then in Paradise was the independent com- 
panion and helpmate of man : for where food was 
to be had for the plucking, she had no lack of other 
strength than she possessed to aid her in the procur- 
ing it ; and where she had no enemies, she needed 
no protection,. The aid therefore which she could 
lend, or receive, could only be that spiritual and in- 
tellectual assistance which human creatures are ever 
prone to seek from each other; since finite beings 
always hope to gain something more of the infinite 
by gathering to themselves the intellectual possessions 
of others as well as their own. And if, as I con- 
ceive, the somewhat more delicate organization, and 
larger proportionate brain of woman, doth give her, 
cxteris paribus, the advantage of quicker perception, 
and greater promptitude in mental operation, we may 
well opine that she was " a help meet for man" in 
all wherein he needed help, but answerable for her 
conduct to God alone, from whom she had received 
the good gift of reason, and freedom to use it. Would 
we then indeed return to our pristine happiness, and 
enjoy the comfort of that interchange of mental 
pleasures which was destined for man as a species, 
we should return also towards that pristine state of 
things. But how standeth the case now ? Popula- 
tion presseth hard, in this long-settled country, on 
the means of subsistence, and woman hath daily 
more and more to learn the lesson that she is but the 
female of that species, the law of whose nature is 
labour: for the first fault having been that of the 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 87 

animal part, God by his merciful decree (loving, 
even in reproof,) weakened its influence, by requiring 
from it enoughi of toil to keep it in subjection to the 
higher and better rule of the rational soul. 

Such then being the natural state of the human 
race, food being made essential to life, and labor 
requisite to the procurance of food, is the position of 
woman in society such, either by law or custom, as 
to enable her to comply with that law which was 
given for such good purpose, and which no human 
customs or human decrees can supersede ? Is she, 
by custom and law, allowed to labor for the means 
of support, or if she hath acquired it, to keep it ? 
and if she be not, what good reason hath society to 
give for so glaring an injustice? A woman may 
marry, I shall be told, and then the husband will 
maintain her. He who answereth thus knoweth 
that he answereth not truly. Where subsistence is 
hard to be won, if the woman bringeth nothing to 
the common stock, marriage is often impracticable, 
unless for a fool that looketh not to the future ; and 
many a woman must remain single for the lack of 
this world's goods : many more would remain single 
rather than sell their persons for food and raiment, — 
for a mercenary marriage is but a market transac- 
tion, — if they had any means of honorable labor 
whereby to eat bread, the sweeter for being that of 
independence. 

Why then should we longer stave off the putting 
the question which sooner or later must be asked? — 
Women are found dying of inanition, unable to 
obtain the wherewith to still the pangs of hunger — 
why is this? — Why is suicide, why is crime the 
hopeless resort of her who in common parlance, 
though not in common usage, is held to be the 
cherished companion and "better half" of man? 



OO CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

This question hath never yet received a satisfactory- 
answer, and haply some may be found to flout at 
mine, though indeed mockery be no refutation. I 
reply that vi^oman's position in society is a false one : 
that healthy, not excessive labor being the law of our 
existence, she hath nevertheless been either debarred 
from using it to good purpose, or else doomed to 
endure it in crushing excess, by defective teaching, 
which hath obliged her to labor with her hands 
rather than her head ; — by unnatural restraints ; — by 
idle or ill maxims : — and when man striveth to over- 
turn the law of God and nature, he is apt to make 
wild work of it; and, like the builders of Babel, to 
find that the fabric he hath sought to raise will re- 
main to future generations but a ruinous monument 
of his own folly. 

Let us not any longer disguise facts: from the 
moment that a female child is born into the world 
she is subjected to an unjust inequality by the laws 
of this realm : she cannot exercise or enjoy the rights 
of a free citizen, even if her lot have fallen in fair 
pasture, and her father having left her wherewith to 
live, she hath remained single and kept it. If she 
marry, her very individual existence is merged in 
that of her husband ; the property that she hath in 
possession is taken from her, or placed peradven- 
ture in the hands of trustees, by whose negligence 
or fraud it is often wasted ; and if she afterwards 
obtain anything by labor or inheritance, it is not 
her's, but her husband's : nay, she is no longer con- 
sidered even as a rational and individual agent in the 
eyes of the law. 

Nor is public opinion more just: — go into a school 
for poor children where the males are receiving such 
an education as may fit them for clerks and shopmen, 
bailiffs or gardeners : and if thou remark on the in- 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 89 

complete instruction afforded to the female children, 
the reply will be — " The gentlemen say it is good 
enough for girls"- — Go a step or two higher : ye 
shall find that the father keepeth his daughters igno- 
rant of business ; for why should they be taught 
what they will never have occasion to exercise? and 
if he sometimes think that after his death they may 
be destitute, he endeavoreth that they shall have two 
or three showy accomplishments, and even those 
insufficiently taught them, that they may take the 
situation of a governess ; and thus the would-be- 
teachers soon come to be more numerous than the 
scholars that need them. Look higher yet : science 
and philosophy are held to be "unfeminine;" and 
those that call for a better system of teaching shall 
be mockingly asked, " Would ye make female pro- 
fessors ?" . 

What then remaineth for a woman who must eat, 
and hath no one to give her bread ? — She may toil 
with her needle. — What sort of maintenance this is, 
late inquiries have shown : she may work sixteen 
hours out of the twenty-four, or perhaps all the night 
as well as all the day, and when she hath ruined 
health and eyesight, find that she still hath not 
wherewith to live : or she may go out as a governess 
if she can obtain that office, even for no better remu- 
neration than her board, or starve when she cannot: 
or she may enter upon a course of sin and shame if 
she be young and handsome ; or commit suicide if 
this fail her. Is this the boon that fathers give their 
daughters ? — Did the law give women the rights of 
free citizenship, parents would take care that their 
female, as well as their male children, should receive 
such an education as should enable them to adminis- 
ter their affairs ; — or if fathers gave their daughters 
a better education, the law would probably view 



90 CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

women with more favor ; but by thus arguing in a 
vicious circle, refusing women their rights because 
they are held unable to exercise them, and then 
denying them a useful education because they have 
no rights to exercise, we inflict unmerited sufferings 
on a large portion of our species, and render those 
idle and adulatory sayings which are addressed to 
women in the heyday of their youth and beauty, 
the crudest of all mockeries. 

Give the female the same chance as the male ; let 
her mind be strengthened by study, and her body 
by exercise; let her see what the world is upon 
whose mercies she is to be cast ; and if the care of 
the law have left her any one right in this so-named 
free country, let her learn to use it in order to obtain 
truer justice for her sex, that the next generation 
may not find crime, starvation, or suicide, the three 
alternatives offered for the acceptance of those whom 
the world prate th to of " woman's proper sphere," — 
nor if strong moral feeling hath eschewed vice, and 
absolute, bitter, biting want hath unsettled the brain, 
be told that the wild endeavor to exchange the lin- 
gering pangs of hunger for a speedier death is a 
punishable offence: — a lunatic asylum, not a pri- 
son, is for the most part the proper place for such 
offenders. 

When the fanaticism of a past age sent human 
beings to the stake, a few pounds of gunpowder to 
tie about the neck, was held a charitable gift, which 
kind hearts, more merciful than the laws, offered to 
the sufferer. Yea, our own holy martys, Ridley 
and Latimer, disdained not such aid : but when a 
woman is doomed, by this hard-hearted and false- 
judging age, to die by the lingering torture of want, 
magistrates and judges refuse the coup de grdce^ and 
insist that the suffering shall be borne unabridged, 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 91 

out of an assumed concern for the souls of those 
whose bodies have been left to perish. 

Far be it from me to countenance that rash impa- 
tience of life which leadeth man to cut short the 
span which God hath assigned to him ; but if, by- 
harshness or neglect, we so embitter the existence 
of some wretched being, that in spite of the instinct- 
ive love of life, it is found a burden too heavy to 
be endured longer ; who ought to bear the blame of 
the sin ? The laws and customs which cause the 
evil, or the unhappy woman, whose brain reeling 
under the repeated shocks of suffering ; or of remorse 
— if hunger have been staved off by sin ; perpetrateth 
an act of violence on herself, whereof it is for God, 
not man, to take cognizance. 

If indeed the numbers of the nation exceed its 
means of subsistence, let the evil be boldly met: the 
world is wide, and other lands can offer soil to till 
when England overfloweth: but let both sexes be 
placed in a situation to struggle fairly with the dif- 
ficulty. It is mean, it is hypocritical, to disguise the 
secret wish to monopolize all profitable employment, 
under the show of a tender concern for the best in- 
terests of "the weaker sex." If we indeed feel 
that such rivals in the counting house, the mart, or 
the lecture-room, would endanger the subsistence of 
men, while enabling women to maintain themselves ; 
let us at least boldly avow it, and devise a remedy 
openly. Throw open then the field of intellectual 
labor : let the female be taught to lighten the toil of 
the body by the work of the mind: teach her the 
skill of arithmetic ; — what is there in the work of a 
book-keeper which she might not well and profitably 
discharge ? open to her the wells of ancient literature 
and modern science, and when they are open, forbid 
her not to drink thereof herself, and to draw thence 



U 



92 CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

enough to quench the thirst of others also. Ye will 
not have a female professor, forsooth ; but do ye not 
sit and applaud night after night while actresses ad- 
dress crowded theatres ? May a woman repeat the 
words of others in public, but not repeat her own? 
May she exhibit her person on the stage in such 
dances as are there performed, and not exhibit an 
experiment in chemistry? May she sing idle lays 
to hundreds, but not speak wisdom to them ? And 
is this boasted care which public opinion taketh of 
female morals? 

It might be matter for longer discourse than I 
have space for, were I closely to examine, and trace 
back to their causes in every instance, the evils here 
noted; but a few of these causes it may be well to 
state briefly. And foremost among these standeth 
the inferiority of the woman in regard to physical 
strength; the which, when many tribes of the great 
human family (from some of which tribes we of this 
realm are descended) became rude and barbarous, and 
warred often for their hunting-grounds, or found it 
more to their taste to seize the goods of others, than 
to labor for themselves, — did make females in great 
measure dependent on the stronger sex for support : 
and dependence among rude nations hath many of 
the characters of slavery. During the season of 
semibarbarism which succeeded to this, after England 
had become a settled kingdom under the Teuton 
races, the code whereon our common as well as 
much of our statute law is founded, was established ; 
and hereon was grafted, not long after the Norman 
feudality; whereby warlike suit and service became 
the main title to property, and the king's legislative 
council consisted of such only as held fiefs : for in 
those days the church also was militant, in the worst 
sense of the word, and the bishop had his vassals, 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 93 

and parceled out his land in knights' fees. At the 
period when William of Warenne could cast his 
sword upon the table when called upon to prove the 
title to his estate, and that wise and strong-handed 
monarch, Edward, the first of that name, found him- 
self obliged to submit to this glave law, it is clear 
that the female sex had very small chance of obtain- 
ing any regard to their rights as human beings: for 
the rude warrior of that day recognized no right in 
any who had not a sword wherewith to maintain it. 
The wife of a baron was a part of his estate, his 
daughter a part of his property : learning he had 
none of himself, and he needed none in his com- 
panion. 

The churchman, the only man in those days who 
had any skill in letters, was doomed to a life of celi- 
bacy by the asceticism which had corrupted the 
simplicity of Christianity: therefore he sought for 
no "help meet for him" in his studies; and kneAV 
nothing of any females but either such as were shut 
away from all liberal science within the walls of a 
convent, or such as ministered only to his baser 
animal needs : and this ascetic rule, which held that 
a saint was disgraced by the very society which his 
mild Master sought and loved, added the finishing 
stroke to woman's degradation. The warrior de- 
spised the feeble hand that could not wield the lance, 
but he also sometimes pitied and cherished the weak 
woman who clung to him for protection: it was 
reserved for a corrupted religious faith to take from 
her even her self-respect ; to banish her foot from the 
holiest spots ; to esteem her touch defilement ! — yea, 
woman, whose courage had braved the terrors of 
Jewish prejudice straining law to destroy the inno- 
cent, and, despite of priests and rulers, followed to 
the cross Him whom all but his gentle woman-like 
9 



94 CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

disciple John had forsaken or forsworn,—- was held 
an unclean creature by those who professed to be 
His servants. There is a tale told of a certain 
Quaker who, having been bitten by a dog, apostro- 
phized him thus — "I will not kill thee, but I will 
give thee a bad name" — and he raised the cry of 
''^bad dog,''^ which being soon mistaken for ^''mad^'' 
the poor beast was hunted till he became mad in 
good earnest: and thus woman, when an ill name 
had been given her at first, however undeservedly, 
became subject to treatment which ofttimes caused 
her at last to deserve it. 

A diff'erent age hath now arisen ; but it is so 
much the instinct of man to do again what he hath 
been accustomed to do and to see done, that old 
habits and opinions still make a stout fight for the 
upper hand, and yield only inch by inch to the pres- 
sure of the times. But nevertheless they do yield, 
and it is therefore at this time especially, that such 
an inquiry as I have endeavored to institute is likely 
to be useful. The world hath been so constituted 
by its Creator, that in all the relations of life man 
must still find woman by his side ; and by that com- 
panionship he must be influenced for the better or 
the worse ; how much all might be benefited were 
that influence always for the better, I will not here 
undertake to conjecture, but this I do know, that 
where a man findeth in a wife, or a daughter, or a 
sister, the real "help meet for him," he enjoyeth a 
reduplication of his mental and even bodily powers ; 
and by her loving labor and sweet companionship 
findeth his toils and cares so lightened of their weight, 
that he would almost wish to have them for the sake 
of finding them so dextrously and gently shared and 
soothed. In this, therefore, as in all other things, 
the doer of injustice findeth, like him who swingeth 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 95 

a flail unskillfully, that it returneth on his own head 
with the more force, the greater the strength he hath 
exerted ; and man, by his injustice to woman, hath 
lost much of that solace and help which was design- 
ed for him by his Creator. And it might be matter 
for curious remark on the constitution of human na- 
ture, that the injustice is now done rather as a mat- 
ter of habit than for any good reason : for no one in 
this age will maintain that either man or woman is 
disqualified for parts of trust or honor by the lack of 
physical strength, or warlike skill ; neither in this re- 
formed church will any man hold himself defiled by 
the society of womankind. Nay, in matters of science 
and literature, if a woman have courage enough to 
brave the flouting of fools, and the opposition of re- 
lations, and gain erudition in spite of the outcry rais- 
ed against woman's learning, — when she hath at last 
achieved fame, her labors will also give her considera- 
tion in society. But it is a false and a bad social state 
when what is right to do, is not also honorable to do. 
When God hath given intellect, and an immortal soul 
to be guided and prepared for its better state by the 
use thereof, we sin against our Creator if we set hu- 
man prejudice higher than God's law. " In Christ 
there is neither male nor female, bond nor free." 

But herein, nevertheless, prejudice holdeth its 
own, maugre God's will; for law and custom having 
debarred females from profitable employment, a fa- 
ther looketh only to the fitting his daughters for 
the market, seeing he can no otherwise rid himself 
of the charge of their maintenance than by shifting 
the onus from his own shoulders to those of a hus- 
band : and for this cause he holdeth that a form 
which may captivate some roving fancy m the dance, 
is of more value than those qualities which may 
make the possessor useful, and consequently happy : 



yb CONDITION OF SOCIETY 

therefore female children are right early taught that 
the care of the ow^side is of more consequence than 
that of the in : and that if the surface of the cranium 
be daintily ornamented, it matters not what may be 
the state of the brain beneath it. If such teaching 
bear its natural fruit, what is the wonder ? One who 
hath for fifteen years been taught that the catching of a 
husband is the great business of life, and who hath 
to set before her eyes what is to please man rather 
than God, — when she hath succeeded in her chase, 
affordeth small comfort to the prisoner she hath 
taken; who may be ruined by her extravagance, 
deprived of his peace by her ill-humor, or disgraced 
by her misconduct. 

I have stated these matters roundly and roughly, 
for doth not the chirurgeon need to use rough and 
sharp remedies when a gangrene is spreading in the 
body ? and this, the gangrene of the body social, re- 
quireth something of the like treatment : for what 
hath been the custom for any long time, hath a kind 
of prescriptive right in men's minds ; and ye shall 
often find it a hard matter to prevail on men to see 
that they have no rational ground for their practice, 
so much is it become hallowed by age. 

Reader, I now bid thee farewell !— If thou be a 
father, lay to thine inmost heart the dread truth that 
God will require at thy hands the immortal souls 
which he hath bestowed on thee, for their nurture 
in the way of life ; and remember that the making 
thy sons fierce and quarrelsome, by way of being 
"manly," and thy daughters idle and useless, under 
the notion that they will thereby become more " fe- 
minine," is not the part of a man who hath a deni- 
zen of the world of spirits entrusted to his training 
for good or for evil. If thou be a woman, forget not, — 
albeit my lesson may sound harsh to flattered ears, — > 



AS TOUCHING THE FEMALE SEX. 97 

that thou wert not sent into this world to waste thy 
hours in indolent repose ; that every human being 
hath his allotted work, and that since God hath not 
seen fit to tell any one beforehand what that work 
will be, he must prepare himself by anxious culture 
in all directions, to execute it well when the task is 
assigned. Though bred to the expectation of riches, 
the hour may come when thou wilt find thy learning 
thy only dower : but whether that hour come or not, 
one far more certain will yet arrive ; that, namely, 
wherein we must give an account of every wasted 
minute and idle word : — look to it, then, that Time 
shall pay good interest in Eternity. 






O 
o 



"'-. ^ 

^/,% ^ 



^-. ^^' 














"y ^ 












* /■ ^^ 



\^ \*o ^^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
^ '" C Neutralizing agent: Magnesiunn Oxide 






<fS 



^^ _^^ 







Treatment Date: July 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 

(<\\ »K //h c ■'la* ^Y 




V' « ^ " 



d> 



^. 




^ V.# ^^C^^^V. % .^ 






- V;% 






r<^ 




<. 
















:^^' 



#' ^ 






^V ^ 



^ \^^ 







<^o^ 







S^ /^fe: \<^^ ^M^-^ ^^-^^^ 






5> ^ 






